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ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 


Schneider 


PORTRAIT  PRESENTED  TO  THE  REPUBLICAN  CLUB,  FEBRUARY 
12,   1909,   BY  THE   LINCOLN   DINNER  COMMITTEE. 


ADDRESSES 


DELIVERED   AT   THE   LINCOLN 
DINNERS   OF 


THE 

NATIONAL  REPUBLICAN  CLUB 


IN   RESPONSE   TO   THE 
TOAST 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

1910-1927 


PRIVATELY   PRINTED 
FOR 

The  National  Republican   Club 
1927 


Copyright,  1927 

BY 

The  National  Republican   Club 


This  Edition  is  limited  to  five  hundred  copies 
of  which  this  copy  is 


Number 


3o:b 


PRINTED  BY  THE  TENNY  PRESS 

33-35  West  17th  Street 

New  York  City 


CONTENTS 

ADDRESSES   BY—  Page 

Robert  C.  Morris 9 

Michael  Clune   13 

William  Howard   Taft 27,  105 

Seth  Low   35 

George  von  L.  Meyer 63 

Frank  W.   Gunsaulus 39 

Theodore   Roosevelt    67 

Otto  T.  Bannard 83 

Charles  0.  Maas 87 

Chauncey   M.   Depew 95 

J.   Van   Vechten   Olcott 119 

William   Carter    123 

Nathan  Goff    149 

Edward   C.   Stokes 161 

James  R.   Sheffield 181,  219 

Simeon  D.  Fess 187,  399 

J.  Adam  Bede 203 

S.   Parkes   Cadman 227,  469 

Warren   G.  Harding 239 

Robert  W.  Bonynge 247 

Charles   D.   Hilles 255 

J.  Percival  Huget 263 

Nicholas  Murray  Butler 285 

W.   Warren   Giles 295 

Job  E.  Hedges 311 

Charles  Reynolds  Brown 329 

Irvine   L.   Lenroot 347 

Nathaniel   A.  Elsberg 361 

Mrs.   August  Belmont 367 

James  W.  Wadsworth 371 

Calvin  Coolidge    377 

Charles  E.  Hughes 407 

James  M.  Beck 421 

John   MacCrate    437 

William  M.   Calder 451 

Curtis  D.  Wilbur 455 

Frank  B.  Willis 465 


PREFACE 

The  National  Kepublican  Club,  conscious  of  its  responsibility 
and  opportunity,  provides  in  this  volume  its  second  contribution 
to  American  letters — the  addresses  delivered  at  its  Lincoln  Day 
dinners  from  1910  to  1927.  Volume  I  long  ago  won  a  place  for 
itself  in  the  esteem  of  those  who  reverence  Lincoln  as  perhaps 
the  finest  source  of  patriotic  inspiration. 

Within  the  covers  of  this  book  will  be  found  eloquence,  wis- 
dom, history — loving  tributes  prompted  by  contemplation  of  the 
character  and  deeds  of  the  mightiest  and  kindliest  soul  of  the 
19th  century. 

The  addresses  herein  contained  now  are  in  permanent  form. 
The  restless  rush  of  a  competitive  age,  especially  here  in  New 
York,  endangers  the  spiritual.  A  volcanic  period  sends  its  ruin- 
spreading  scoria  over  flower  and  vine — ^the  flood  of  years  its  un- 
welcome erosion  detritus.  As  in  the  physical  so  in  the  spiritual. 
The  noble  contributions  inspired  at  recurring  Lincoln  anniver- 
saries were  in  danger  of  submergence  until  they  were  gathered 
into  permanent  printed  form.  They  now  become  a  lasting  me- 
morial. As  such,  the  twin  volumes  will  appeal  to  student,  pub- 
licist, historian,  philosopher. 

The  work  of  compiling  and  editing  was  entrusted  to  members 
of  the  club  by  President  Calder,  whose  co-operation  greatly  facil- 
itated the  task. 

In  a  familiar  essay  Emerson  says:  "We  shall  one  day  see  that 
the  most  private  is  the  most  public  energy;  that  quality  atones 


for  quantity,  and  grandeur  of  character  acts  in  the  dark,  and  suc- 
cors them  who  never  saw  it/' 

Lincoln's  character  has  done  just  that.  It  follows  that  the 
testimony  from  warm,  loyal  hearts — from  those  who  have  been 
ennobled — will  in  turn  radiate  the  spirit  of  the  Great  Eman- 
cipator. 

EMANUEL  HEETZ, 
CHARLES  T.  WHITE. 

New  York,  1927. 


THE    TWENTY-FOURTH 

AITNUAL   LINCOLN   DINNEK 

of  the 

REPUBLICAN    CLUB 

of  the 

City  of  New  York 

At  the  Waldorf-Astoria 
FEBRUARY  12,  1910 


Addresses  of 


MR.  ROBERT  C.  MORRIS 


REV.  MICHAEL  CLUNE,  D.D. 


PRESIDENT  TAFT 


ROBERT  C.  (CLARK)  MORRIS 

Lecturer  on  French  Law,  Yale  "University;  Counsel 
for  the  United  States  before  TJ.  S.  and  Venezuelan 
Claims  Commission;  Agent  and  General  Counsel  repre- 
senting the  TTnited  States  before  the  Mixed  Claims  (TJ. 
S.  and  Germany)  Commission;  President  of  the  Na- 
tional Republican  Club,  1909 ;  Author  of  several  works. 


ADDEESS    OF  T 

MR.  ROBERT  C.  MORRIS 

President  of  the  Club 


Ladies  and  gentlemen,  I  ask  you  all  to  rise  to  drink  a  toast — 
The  President  of  the  United  States. 

Mr.  President,  ladies  and  gentlemen:  On  the  25th  day  of  last 
September,  the  Republican  Club  of  the  City  of  New  York  was 
thirty  years  old.  In  that  long  period  of  years  its  policy  has  been 
broadly  patriotic,  and  not  confined  to  the  narrow  limitations  of 
partisanship.  Early  in  its  career,  inspired  by  a  sentiment  of 
patriotism,  it  began  the  formal  observation  of  the  anniversary 
of  the  birth  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  and  we  can  congratulate  our- 
selves, not  only  that  we  have  held  these  celebrations  for  nearly 
a  quarter  of  a  century,  but  that  they  have  been  so  uniformly 
worthy  of  their  subject.  Our  Lincoln  celebrations  have  been  pre- 
eminent for  the  great  men  they  have  called  together  and  for  the 
spirit  they  have  always  manifested  of  devotion  to  a  great  life 
and  a  great  cause.  If  we  could  bring  together  here  to-night  all 
those  who  have  graced  these  occasions  as  our  guests  of  honor, 
we  should  have  almost  every  leader  of  the  Republican  party  in 
the  last  twenty-five  years.  Our  honored  guest  of  this  evening  is 
the  fourth  President  of  the  United  States  whom  we  have  enter- 
tained on  Lincoln's  birthday — Benjamin  Harrison,  William  Mc- 
Kinley,  Theodore  Roosevelt.    All  these  have  stood  upon  this  plat- 


10  THE   KEPUBLICAN   CLUB 

form  and  paid  their  tributes  to  their  immortal  predecessor.  That 
we  have  been  brought  into  close  personal  touch  with  Lincoln  is 
illustrated  by  the  fact  that  we  have  had  here,  as  one  of  our  guests 
of  honor,  Hannibal  Hamlin,  his  own  Vice-President,  and  a  long 
succession  of  men  who  knew  him  intimately,  from  the  rugged  and 
honest  Hawley  to  the  courtly  Evarts,  the  brilliant  IngersoU,  the 
witty  and  graphic  Porter,  who  have  furnished  us  with  anecdotes, 
characterizations  and  flashlight  glimpses  into  the  darkest  periods 
of  the  War  of  the  Rebellion,  which  the  historian  who  desires  a 
true  portrait  of  Lincoln  cannot  safely  ignore. 

At  our  earlier  celebrations  our  orators  were  wont  to  dwell  upon 
the  fact  that  Lincoln  was  a  Eepublican,  and  they  apparently 
loved  to  remember  that  he  had  made  war  in  the  face  of  Demo- 
cratic ridicule  and  had  achieved  his  great  results  in  spite  of 
Democratic  opposition.  That  feeling,  natural  enough  twenty-five 
years  ago,  is  gradually  giving  way.  We  no  longer  selfishly  claim 
Lincoln  as  our  own  particular  property;  we  long  since  gave  him 
freely  to  the  Nation  and  to  the  World.  Strongly  as  Lincoln  loved 
the  Republican  party  and  believed  in  its  principles,  it  was  not 
his  first  love.  Greatly  as  he  loved  the  Northerners,  among  whom 
his  lot  was  cast,  they  did  not  take  the  foremost  place  in  his  af- 
fection. Greatly  as  he  detested  slavery,  there  were  things  that 
he  hated  far  more.  Before  the  Republican  party,  his  first  affec- 
tion was  the  loyal  American  citizen — worse  than  even  slavery 
itself,  in  his  estimation,  was  a  disunited  and  disorganized  country. 
There  was  nothing  that  Lincoln  would  not  have  sacrificed  to  ac- 
complish this  fixed  and  fundamental  purpose — to  preserve  in  its 
integrity  this  broad  land.  Genius  may  perhaps  be  defined  as  the 
ability  to  concentrate  the  mind  upon  one  grand  idea,  and  national 
unity  was  the  one  thing  that  Lincoln  clearly  saw.  You  will  re- 
call the  broadside  of  Greeley  in  the  "Tribune''  when  he  called 


ADDRESS  OF  MR.  ROBERT  C.  MORRIS  11 

upon  the  President  for  the  immediate  emancipation  of  the  slaves. 
Lincoln's  answer  was  masterful,  not  only  in  its  expression,  but 
in  its  enunciation  of  the  sentiment  which  guided  his  course.  The 
fundamental  purpose  of  the  war,  he  said,  was  not  the  freedom  of 
the  slave,  but  national  unity.  "If  I  could  save  the  nation  with- 
out freeing  any  slaves,  I  would  do  it;  and  if  I  could  save  it  by 
freeing  all  the  slaves,  I  would  do  that;  and  if  I  could  save  it  by 
freeing  some  and  leaving  others  alone,  I  would  also  do  that." 
To-day,  thank  God,  we  have  a  united  and  prosperous  country. 
We  do  not  face  the  critical  problems  that  Lincoln  faced,  but  we 
■till  have  abundant  opportunity  to  give  expression  to  his  uni- 
versal patriotism,  his  broad  and  farsighted  devotion  to  a  great 
governmental  ideal,  and  as  loyal  American  citizens  we  can  re- 
joice in  the  fact  that  we  have  entrusted  the  policies  of  this  great 
nation  to  the  safe  and  sure  hands  of  Lincoln's  worthy  successor, 
our  distinguished  guest  of  honor  here  to-night,  William  H.  Taft. 


REV.  DR.  MICHAEL  CLUNE 
Clergyman — Lecturer — Publicist. 


ADDRESS   OF 

REV.  MICHAEL  CLUNE 


Mr.  Chairman,  Mr.  President,  honored  guests  and  clubmen: 
Our  Ship  of  State  is  now  flying  silken  flags  and  floating  ma- 
jestically over  golden  seas.  I  remember  when  it  was  dismantled 
and  at  the  mercy  of  furious  storms;  when  scarcely  a  star  of  hope 
twinkled  in  its  darkened  sky,  when  wreckers  were  waiting  upon 
rock-bound  coasts  to  plunder  it;  when  pirates  followed  it  with 
the  hope  of  boarding  it,  when  wave  after  wave  threatened  to 
engulf  it.  In  these  latter  days  we  have  seen  oil  poured  upon 
the  troubled  waters  with  saving  effect.  In  the  awful  storm  of 
which  I  speak  no  oil  would  be  efiicacious.  It  was  only  blood  that 
could  calm  the  waves  and  keep  the  ship  afloat.  And  because  the 
vessel  was  freighted  with  human  destiny  and  was  the  object  of 
human  hope  a  libation  of  blood  was  poured  out  so  large  that  it 
covered  the  sea  and  caused  a  great  calm.  There  is  danger  of  our 
under-estimating  the  men  who  founded  the  Southern  Confederacy. 
They  were  men  of  singular  ability.  They  reduced  politics  to  a 
science.  It  was  the  happiness  of  the  few  through  the  misery  of 
the  many. 

Mr.  Lincoln,  whose  name  we  honor  to-night,  also  reduced  poli- 
tics to  a  science.  It  was  the  happiness  of  the  many  through  the 
avoidable  misery  of  none. 

He  could,  at  the  date  of  his  election,  say,  with  Job,  as  his  whole 


14  THE  REPUBLICAN   CLUB 

life  said  afterward,  "The  ear  that  heard  me  blessed  me,  and  the 
eye  that  saw  me  gave  witness  to  me.  Because  I  had  delivered  the 
poor  man  that  cried  out  and  the  fatherless  that  had  no  helper. 
The  blessings  of  him  that  was  ready  to  perish  came  upon  me  and 
I  comforted  the  heart  of  the  widow.  I  was  clad  with  justice  as 
with  a  robe  and  with  judgment  as  with  a  diadem.  I  was  an 
eye  to  the  blind  and  a  foot  to  the  lame.  I  was  the  father  of  the 
poor  and  the  cause  that  I  knew  not  I  sought  out.  I  broke  the 
jaws  of  the  wicked,  and  from  between  his  teeth  I  took  away  the 
prey." 

When  freedom  was  brought  forth  on  this  Continent,  an  after- 
birth of  slavery  was  suffered  to  remain.  As  in  the  physical,  so 
in  the  political  body,  this  after-birth  poisoned  the  blood  and 
threatened  death.  The  republic,  a  poor  convulsed  patient,  was 
brought  so  low  that  only  consummate  skill  and  martyr  patience 
and  womanly  tenderness  could  save  its  life,  and  yet  the  uncouth 
backwoodsman  of  Illinois  performed  this  task  so  well  that  he 
gave  the  Nation  renewed  and  higher  life,  struck  the  chains  from 
the  limbs  of  millions  and  left  a  name  that  has  become  the  poor 
man's  heritage  and  that  will  grow  brighter  and  sweeter  in  the 
annals  of  men  till  time  shall  be  no  more. 

Abraham  Lincoln  was  born  in  Kentucky  on  February  12,  1809, 
of  poor  parents,  in  a  wretched  cabin.  Yet  in  no  palace  of  all 
this  earth  was  there  ever  ushered  in  a  life  so  pregnant  with 
human  weal.  To  find  a  birth  greater  for  human  purpose  than 
Mr.  Lincoln's,  we  must  go  lower  than  the  Kentucky  cabin.  We 
must  go  to  the  bulrushes  of  Egypt  or  the  manger  of  Bethlehem. 
His  early  manhood  was  described  in  his  own  pathetic  sentence, 
**the  short  and  simple  annals  of  the  poor."  In  1833  he  entered 
into  partnership  with  a  worthless  drunkard  and  was  left  by  that 
partner  in  debt.    He  paid  every  dollar  of  the  obligations,  although 


ADDEESS  OF  E£V.  MICHAEL  CLUKE,  D.D.  15 

it  took  him  twelve  years  to  do  it.  He  had  not  learned  onr  modern 
way  of  paying  fifty  cents  on  the  dollar.  Like  Washington,  he 
learned  to  survey,  but  unlike  Washington,  he  acquired  none  of 
the  land  which  he  surveyed.  Like  Sherman,  he  took  a  hatred  of 
slavery  by  seeing  men  and  women  auctioned  in  New  Orleans. 

He  was  elected  to  Congress  in  1846.  He  voted  for  the  Wilmot 
Proviso.  He  introduced  resolutions  regarding  Polk's  responsibil- 
ity for  the  Mexican  War,  and  declined  a  renomination. 

Now,  that  would  naturally  have  ended  the  public  life  of  Abta- 
ham  Lincoln,  but  if  anyone  supposes  that  that  life  was  not  then 
high,  august  and  full,  he  does  not  know  the  man.  There  is  no 
real  success  accidental.  It  is  the  glory  of  America  that  it  has 
private  citizens  who  would  adorn  any  station.  When  Lincoln 
returned  from  Congress  his  powers  were  both  mature  and  pro- 
found. This  may  seem  the  after-thought  of  flattery.  Happily 
no  flattery  can  excel  the  evidences  extant.  No  description  of 
Dante's  pathos  can  rival  his  own  portrayal  of  it,  "Only  the  exile 
can  know  how  bitter  is  the  bread  of  dependence  and  how  steep 
are  the  stranger's  stairs."  The  richness  of  Shakespeare's  imagina- 
tion can  be  given  in  no  other  words  so  well  as  in  his  own,  "Still 
in  thy  right  hand  carry  gentle  peace  to  silence  envious  tongues." 
And  so  the  tale  of  no  flatterer  can  inspire  the  awe  of  Mr.  Lin- 
coln, that  the  words  of  record  give  to  every  thoughtful  mind.  In 
speaking  in  Congress  on  the  Mexican  War,  Mr.  Lincoln  said: 
"Mr.  Speaker,  let  us  beware  of  military  glory.  It  is  a  rainbow 
made  of  drops  of  blood.  Like  the  fascination  of  the  serpent,  it 
charms  only  to  destroy."  In  an  address  upon  Young  America 
occur  these  words:  "I  wonder  if  Young  America  asks  itself  how 
many  generations  of  profound  intellects  labored  and  passed  away 
in  producing  the  alphabet." 

With  these  deep  thoughts  Lincoln  united  a  tenderness  that 


16  THE   REPUBLICAN   CLUB 

sought  expression  in  poetry  at  his  mother's  grave  and  a  sense  of 
humor  that  never  failed.  He  knew  a  farmer  that  was  not  greedy 
about  land.    "All  I  want,"  says  the  farmer,  "is  what  jines  mine." 

In  a  trial,  Lincoln  once  had  for  an  opponent  a  lawyer  who 
spoke  readily  and  interminably  to  an  ignorant  and  impressible 
jury.  Lincoln  saw  that  he  must  counteract  the  impression  made 
by  the  shallow  prattler  and  addressed  the  jury  as  follows:  "My 
opponent  seems  unable  to  both  speak  and  think  at  the  same  time. 
I  have  no  doubt  if  he  stopped  speaking  he  could  think  and  you 
all  realize  that  when  he  doesn't  think  he  can  speak.  He  reminds 
me  of  a  steamer  on  the  Sangamon  river.  It  had  a  seven-foot 
whistle  and  a  five-foot  boiler,  and  when  the  whistle  blew  the 
steam  was  exhausted  and  the  vessel  stopped."  Lincoln's  oppo- 
nents once  persuaded  a  liveryman  to  rent  him  a  horse  so  slow 
that  it  would  not  take  him  in  time  to  a  convention.  "Do  you 
keep  the  horse  for  funerals?"  said  Lincoln  on  his  return.  "Oh, 
no!"  said  the  man  demurely.  "I  am  glad  you  don't,"  said  Lin- 
coln, "for  it  would  not  take  the  corpse  to  the  grave  in  time  for 
the  resurrection." 

When  Lincoln  challenged  Senator  Douglas  to  debate  it  was 
looked  upon  as  rather  presumptuous.  Douglas  was  the  better 
known  and  Lincoln  acknowledged  with  candor  and  humor  his 
opponent's  advantage  over  him.  He  was  a  presidential  candi- 
date and  men  already  saw  post-offices  and  judgeships  in  his  jovial 
face.  But,  added  Lincoln,  who  can  see  anything  of  that  kind  in 
my  poor  homely  face?  Douglas  asked  if  Lincoln  would  marry  a 
negress.  Lincoln  answered:  "There  may  be  senses  in  which  the 
negro  is  inferior  to  the  white  man,  but  in  the  right  to  eat  the 
bread  which  his  own  hands  have  earned  he  is  the  equal  of  Judge 
Douglas  or  of  any  man  alive."  Douglas  insisted  on  repeating  a 
disproved  and  obnoxious  statement.    Lincoln  finally  said  that  the 


ADDRESS  OF  REV.  MICHAEL  CLUNE,  D.D.  17 

falsehood  had  been  so  long  dead  that  it  had  become  bloated.  It 
reminded  him  of  a  woman  whose  husband's  corpse  had  been  in 
the  water  until  eels  gathered  in  the  clothing.  When  the  widow 
was  asked  what  disposition  was  to  be  made  of  the  body,  she 
answered :  "Take  out  the  eels  and  set  him  again."  As  the  debates 
progressed  the  politicians  chafed  Lincoln  on  Douglas's  superiority, 
and  asked  him  to  acknowledge  his  defeat.  Said  he:  "I  shall  to- 
days ask  Douglas  a  question  that  he  must  answer  yea  or  nay.  If 
he  answers  it  one  way  he  will  lose  the  North.  If  he  answers  it 
the  other  he  will  lose  the  South."  The  question  was  this :  "If  all 
the  citizens  of  a  territory,  except  one,  were  opposed  to  slavery 
could  that  one  keep  slaves?"  Douglas,  after  many  efforts  to 
evade  the  question,  answered  no.  He  lost  the  South  and  by  that 
loss  Lincoln  became  President. 

His  inauagural  was  the  first  of  a  series  of  State  papers,  the 
most  marvellous  in  the  history  of  the  race.  In  the  first  message 
to  Congress  occurs  this  paragraph:  "In  the  issue  of  this  contest 
is  involved  the  destiny  of  the  species.  It  is  now  to  be  determined 
whether  all  republics  have  this  inherent  and  fatal  defect;  that 
they  must  be  too  strong  for  the  liberties  of  their  people  or  too 
weak  to  preserve  their  own  life."  Side  by  side  with  this  high 
oratory  was  a  homely  sense  of  perception  never  equalled  except 
in  Aesop.  I  know  that  it  will  appear  rash  to  say  that  anyone 
was  homelier  personally  than  Mr.  Lincoln.  But  unless  Greek  art 
has  woefully  wronged  Aesop,  Lincoln  was  an  Adonis  in  compari- 
son to  him.  In  great  crises,  however,  there  was  a  similar  resource- 
fulness in  the  great  slave  and  the  great  emancipator.  Once 
Aesop's  master  had  given  some  grapes  to  two  of  the  other  slaves 
to  be  kept  in  a  cool,  shady  place  by  the  running  water  against 
supper.  The  sun  was  warm  on  the  Grecian  hills.  Forbidden 
fruit  seems  always  sweetest;  the  slaves'  teeth  watered  for  the 


18  THE  EEPTIBLICAN  CLUB 


grapes  and  they  finally  ate  them,  trusting  to  a  cunning  defense. 
They  knew  that  Aesop  stuttered  when  excited.     They  thought 
he  would  be  flogged  before  he  could  explain.     They  knew  he 
would  then  make  no  explanation  through  resentment,  and  they 
boldly  accused  him  of  stealing  and  eating  the  grapes.     Their 
plan  worked  well  up  to  a  certain  point.    Aesop  could  not  speak 
plainly.    He  was  ordered  to  strip,  but  by  face  and  gesture  he 
pleaded  eloquently  for  delay.     This  being  granted,  he  brought 
from  the  kitchen  lukewarm  water,  swallowed  it,  and  putting  his 
finger  in  his  mouth  threw  it  up  again.     Then  pointing  to  the 
slaves  he  intimated  that  they  should  do  the  same.    In  their  case 
with  the  lukewarm  water  came  up  the  partly  digested  grapes. 
When  the  Albany  convention  upbraided  Mr.  Lincoln  with  vio- 
lating the  Constitution,  he  replied  that  a  sick  man  must  some- 
times take  emetics,  but  that  no  doctor  would  give  emetics  to  a 
patient  after  he  becomes  well.    To  those  who  censured  his  mercy 
toward  deserters  he  was  sometimes  able  to  give  a  practical  lesson. 
Thaddeus  Stevens,  one  of  the  loudest  declaimers  against  execu- 
tive pardons^  was  asked  by  a  prominent  neighbor  to  intercede 
for  her  son.    Stevens'  refusal  would  have  cost  him  hundreds  of 
votes,  and  he  accompanied  the  lady  to  the  White  House  with  the 
best  grace  he  could.     Lincoln  took  in  the  situation  at  a  glance, 
and  said  he  would  be  guided  by  what  Mr.  Stevens  thought  was 
righf.     Thaddeus  said  pardon  him.     The  President   wrote  the 
pardon  and  handed  it  to  the  mother.     The  lady  was  delirious 
with  gratitude,  but  restrained  herself  until  outside  the  executive 
chamber.    Then  she  broke  out  vehemently,  "It's  a  lie,  it's  a  lie." 
Said  Stevens,  "what's  a  lie."    "Why,  they  told  me  at  home  that 
Mr.  Lincoln  was  homely,  and  he  is  the  handsomest  man  I  ever 
saw."    This  brings  to  mind  the  old  verse: 


ADDRESS  OF  REV.  MICHAEL  CLTJNE,  D.D.  19 

"The  sweetest  faces  that  we  know 
Are  not  merely  those  of  beauty, 
And  the  blessedest  paths  in  which  we  go 
Are  the  homely  paths  of  duty." 

Mercy  was  not  the  only  fault  ascribed  to  the  President  by  a 
growing  and  aggressive  section  of  the  party  that  elected  him. 
He  was  accused  of  not  hastening  the  abolition  of  slavery.  Lin- 
coln hesitated,  because  he  knew  the  difficulties  of  the  situation. 
His  reasoning,  like  the  procession  of  the  equinoxes,  was  slow 
and  sure,  and  influenced  by  supernal  forces,  and  beyond  shallow 
computation.  He  knew  that  no  human  mind  could  conceive  and 
that  no  human  arm  could  execrute  the  details  of  the  great  re- 
demption. He  knew  that,  as  of  old,  the  door  lintels  of  all  the 
faithful  homes  in  the  land  would  be  sprinkled  with  blood,  and 
all  the  first  born  of  the  oppressors  would  be  slain  before  the 
children  of  bondage  would  be  let  go.  He  knew  that  human  jus- 
tice ripens  in  the  light  of  truth  as  wheat  ripens  in  the  light  of 
the  sun,  and  he  looked  anxiously  over  the  heavens  and  the  earth 
for  a  sign  that  the  moral  harvest-time  had  come.  With  the 
delegation  of  Chicago  ministers  urging  emancipation,  and  with 
the  Cabinet  considering  emancipation,  his  humor  was  only  the 
thin  veil  under  which  he  hid  his  anxious  scrutiny.  To  the  min- 
isters urging  their  divine  commission  to  have  him  free  the  slaves, 
he  put  two  objections.  First:  Was  it  reasonable  to  suppose  that 
God  would  not  reveal  His  will  to  him  directly  who  had  asked 
earnestly  in  prayer  to  know  it?  Secondly:  Was  it  probable  if 
God  sought  outside  agency  He  would  send  it  through  Chicago  ?  To 
the  members  of  the  Cabinet,  who  thought  the  President's  humor- 
ous reading  an  ill-timed  prelude  to  great  business,  he  gave  matter 
worthy  of  their  and  our  profoundest  consideration.  He  said  that 
he  submitted  a  document  to  their  judgment  about  whose  oppor- 


20  THE   REPUBLICAN   CLUB 


tuneness  and  phraseology,  he  asked  their  criticism.  He  could  not 
seek  their  advice  as  to  its  scope.  To  do  so  would  be  disingenuous. 
He  continued:  "When  the  Rebels  invaded  Maryland  I  promised 
my  Maker  that  if  they  were  driven  out  I  would  take  it  as  the 
sign  for  which  I  had  prayed  so  long,  that  He  wanted  the  slaves 
freed.    They  were  driven  out  and  I  consider  the  matter  closed." 

I  believe  the  capture  of  Vicksburg  to  have  been  the  greatest 
victory  of  the  war.  There  is  not  the  halo  around  it  which  en- 
velops Gettysburg  or  Winchester  or  Appomattox,  but  in  future 
fame,  I  think,  it  will  surpass  them  all.  As  a  single  incident, 
60,000  men  waded  waist  deep  in  water  for  100  days  and  without 
profit.  The  siege  was  long  of  doubtful  issue.  A  few  days  before 
the  surrender,  bluff  Ben  Wade  went  to  the  President  and  urged 
the  removal  of  Grant  as  a  drunken  and  incompetent  butcher. 
Lincoln  good-naturedly  replied,  "Senator,  that  reminds  me  of  a 
story."  "Yes,"  replied  Wade,  petulantly.  "It  is  all  story,  story 
with  you.  You  are  on  the  road  to  hell,  sir,  with  this  govern- 
ment, and  you  are  not  more  than  a  mile  off  this  minute."  "Sen- 
ator, that  is  about  the  distance  to  the  Capitol,  is  it  not?"  replied 
Lincoln. 

Lincoln's  extreme  relief  over  the  capture  of  Vicksburg  was 
evidenced  by  the  cordiality  with  which  he  received  General 
Thayer,  the  first  participant  in  the  campaign,  whom  he  met  after 
the  victory.  The  President  was  bubbling  over  with  graciousness 
and  enthusiasm,  and  the  General  ventured  to  ask  a  rather  pre- 
sumptuous question.  "Mr.  President,  what  about  Mexico?" 
"Ah,"  said  Lincoln,  "that  reminds  me  of  a  story.  Deacon  White 
and  Elder  Jones  were  friends  from  childhood  and  pillars  of  the 
same  church.  Toward  middle  life  a  misunderstanding  arose  be- 
tween them  which  deepened  with  the  years.  Deacon  White  being 
taken  deathly  sick,  the  minister  said  to  him:  ^Deacon,  it  is  not 


ADDRESS  OF  REV.  MICHAEL  CLTTNE,  D.D.  21 

godly  for  you  to  die  at  enmity  with  your  brother.'  Other  friends 
persuaded  Elder  Jones  to  visit  the  dying  man  and  a  reconcilia- 
tion was  effected.  As  the  elder  was  leaving  the  sick  room,  the 
dying  man  said :  'Jones,  if  I  get  well  the  grudge  stands.' "  "So," 
said  the  President,  "we  are  now  very  sick,  but  if  we  get  well  I 
shall  tell  Louis  Napoleon  to  take  his  troops  out  of  Mexico."  One 
day  Lincoln  found  Stanton  foaming  at  the  mouth  with  rage,  a 
General  had  disobeyed  him.  "Why  don't  you  write  him?"  said 
the  President.  "I  shall,"  said  Stanton.  "Make  it  good  and 
strong,"  said  Lincoln.  "It  will  be  strong  enough,"  said  Stanton. 
The  letter  being  written  was  admired  by  both.  "By  whom  shall 
I  send  it?"  said  the  great  Secretary.  "Why,  you  don't  intend 
sending  it,  do  you?"  said  the  President.  "Certainly,  said  Stan- 
ton. "I  wouldn't,"  said  Lincoln,  "that  letter  was  written  to  re- 
lieve your  mind,  not  to  worry  the  General."  An  admiring  friend 
once  said  to  Mr.  Lincoln :  "I  suppose  you  are  offered  a  great  deal 
of  advice."  "Yes,"  replied  the  President.  "I  sometimes  feel  like 
the  traveler  who  was  caught  in  the  woods  at  night  during  a 
thunder  storm.  The  dense  foliage  hid  the  lightning  and  caused 
the  thunder  to  reverberate.  The  traveler  did  not  feel  that  he 
had  many  claims  upon  the  Almighty,  but  finally  ventured  this 
modest  petition:  'Lord,  if  it  is  all  the  same  to  you,  I  would  like 
more  light  and  less  noise." 

Lincoln's  dislike  of  cant  is  shown  in  the  story  of  the  cadaverous 
adventist  asking  in  sepulchral  tones  of  a  good-natured  official  the 
use  of  the  Springfield  Town  Hall  to  announce  the  second  coming 
of  Christ:  "My  friend,"  said  the  ofiicial,  "there  must  be  some 
mistake;  if  Christ  was  in  Springfield  once  he  would  never  come 
a  second  time."  His  opinion  of  the  native  American  or  A.  P.  A. 
Society  is  shown  in  these  words:  "We  began  by  saying  that  all 
men  are  equal.    We  made  an  amendment  that  all  men  are  equal. 


THE  REPUBLICAN  CLUB 


except  negroes.  Some  want  to  make  a  second  amendment  that 
all  men  are  equal,  except  negroes  and  Catholics.  When  that 
amendment  passes  I  hope  I  may  live  in  Russia  where  I  can  take 
my  despotism  pure  and  simple  without  the  base  alloy  of  hyroc- 
risy."  Mr.  Lincoln's  political  success  was  gained  by  a  ministry 
of  goodness.  Common  sense  and  patience  were  his  instruments 
against  deceit.  An  English  nobleman  having  commiserated  him 
upon  the  great  losses  in  the  army,  Lincoln  asked  him  how  he 
knew  the  losses  were  so  great.  The  nobleman  answered,  "from 
the  newspapers."  Lincoln  said  the  newspaper  reports  were  as  de- 
fective as  "Nigger  rithmetic."  He  then  explained:  "One  darkey 
said  to  another,  *Sam,  if  there  are  three  birds  on  a  fence  and  I 
shoot  two,  will  not  there  be  one  left?'  *No,'  said  Sam,  *the  other 
will  fly  away.' "  The  practical  sense  of  Lincoln  saved  the  coun- 
try, but  displeased  the  politicians.  Lincoln  would  not  argue  with 
them  whether  the  seceded  States  were  in  the  Union  or  out  of  it. 
He  said  their  relation  to  the  TJnion  was  changed  and  should  be 
restored  at  the  earliest  possible  moment.  He  refused,  on  July  4, 
1864,  to  sign  a  severe  reconstruction  law,  and  greatly  offended  a 
majority  of  his  party  in  Congress.  He  was  accused  of  imbecility 
and  arrogance  in  a  document  signed  by  B.  F.  Wade,  on  the  part 
of  the  Senate,  and  H.  W.  Davis,  on  the  part  of  the  House.  In 
his  message  to  the  Congress,  in  December,  1864,  he  urged  an 
amendment  to  the  Constitution  prohibiting  slavery,  and  referred 
to  the  inflammatory  address  in  these  words:  "Neither  you  nor  I, 
gentlemen,  can  escape  our  responsibility.  Neither  your  ability 
nor  my  mediocrity  can  remain  hidden  in  obscurity.  The  lurid 
glare  enveloping  us  will  light  us  down  in  honor  or  in  dishonor 
to  the  remotest  period  of  time.  It  is,  therefore,  now  to  be  de- 
termined by  us  whether  we  shall  nobly  defend  or  meanly  betray 
the  last  hope  of  earth."     The  radical  discontent  with  Lincoln 


ADDRESS  OF  REV.  MICHAEL  CLUNE,  D.D.  23 

manifested  itself  in  the  Cleveland  convention.  This  gathering 
numbered  about  400,  and  nominated  Fremont  for  the  Presidency. 
Lincoln  being  asked  his  opinion  of  the  nomination,  repeated  from 
Scripture :  "And  there  was  gathered  unto  him  every  one  that  was 
in  debt  and  every  one  whose  hand  was  against  his  brother,  and 
every  one  who  had  no  fixed  abode,  and  there  were  gathered  in 
all  about  400  men.'*  Being  pressed  for  further  views  of  the  con- 
vention he  told  this  story:  "Two  Irish  emigrants  being  in  a  large 
wood,  a  tree  toad  croaked  about  their  heads.  As  they  were  un- 
used to  forest  life  they  tried  anxiously  to  discover  the  origin  of 
the  sound.  Finally  one  said  to  the  other,  *What  is  the  use  of 
looking  any  more?  it  is  only  a  noise.' "  When  Lincoln  was  re- 
elected it  was  seen  that  his  homely  sense  and  goodness  had  united 
the  North  and  had  disunited  the  South.  In  his  last  message  to 
Congress  he  appalled  the  Southern  heart  and  paralyzed  the  South- 
ern arm  by  pointing  to  the  time  when  the  North,  by  immigra- 
tion, would  teem  with  countless  millions,  and  the  South,  by 
famine  and  the  blockade,  would  be  reduced  to  a  graveyard.  In 
the  peace  negotiations  preceding  the  collapse  of  the  Confederacy, 
Lincoln  would  not  recognize  Davis's  title  as  President  of  the  Con- 
federacy. When  reminded  that  Charles  I.  treated  with  the  in- 
surgents on  equal  terms,  he  replied:  "My  only  clear  recollection 
of  the  transaction  is  that  Charles  lost  his  head."  Although  Lin- 
coln would  not  honor  Davis,  he  was  opposed  to  punishing  him, 
and  took  a  quaint  way  of  avoiding  it.  A  few  days  before  the 
fall  of  Richmond,  Grant  said  to  him:  "Mr.  President,  we  can  so 
take  Richmond  that  we  can  capture  Jeff  Davis  and  we  can  so 
take  Richmond  that  he  will  escape;  what  shall  we  do?"  Said 
the  President:  "I  will  tell  you  a  story:  An  Irishman,  who  had 
taken  the  pledge  from  Father  Matthew,  was  with  a  crowd  of 
drinking  companions.     He  said  finally  to  the  bartender,  'Could 


24  THE  REPUBLICAN   CLUB 

you  put  a  little  whiskey  in  that  lemonade  anonst  to  me?'  'Yes,' 
replied  the  bartender.  'Well/  replied  the  other,  'Be  sure  you 
do  it  anonst  to  me.' "    Jeff  Davis  escaped. 

I  have  quoted  extensively  from  Lincoln's  speeches  because  I 
believe  they  should  be  committed  to  memory  by  our  youth.  When 
the  shock  of  the  Civil  War  came,  Webster's  speeches  for  the  Un- 
ion helped  to  unite  and  nerve  the  North.  In  a  much  higher 
sense  the  Lincoln  classics  will  stimulate  Americans  in  the  strug- 
gles that  are  to  come.  It  is  said  that  our  next  war  will  be  a 
social  one.  May  God  avert  such  calamity.  If,  however,  it  should 
come,  where,  outside  of  the  Christian  Scriptures,  could  good  men 
find  such  inspiration  as  in  the  close  of  the  last  inaugural:  "With 
malice  toward  none,  with  charity  for  all,  with  firmness  in  the 
right,  as  God  gives  us  to  see  the  right,  let  us  strive  on  to  finish 
the  work  we  are  in,  to  bind  up  the  nation's  wounds,  to  care  for 
him  who  shall  have  borne  the  battle  and  for  his  widow  and  his 
orphan,  to  do  all  which  may  achieve  and  cherish  a  just  and  a 
lasting  peace  among  ourselves  and  with  all  nations." 

Although  President  Lincoln  knew  his  own  transcendent  abil- 
ity, he  always  said  that  the  main  reliance  of  the  Union  was  upon 
God  and  the  movements  of  the  armies.  That  high  reliance  did 
not  fail.  The  armies  of  Grant  and  Sherman  and  Sheridan  brought 
the  Rebellion  to  a  close  and  the  Confederacy  disappeared  as  a 
nightmare  disappears  before  the  day.  And  then  for  the  great 
President  came  a  few  days  of  rest  and  peace.  His  clouded  brow 
relaxed.  His  wearied  face  grew  calm.  He  saw  the  world  at  his 
feet.  He  saw  the  nation  that  he  had  saved  wild  with  gratitude. 
He  saw  the  race  that  he  had  enfranchised  begin  its  improvement. 
In  sweetest  fancy  he  saw  the  waving  hands  and  he  heard  the 
grateful  plaudits  of  untold  millions  that  are  yet  to  be.  And  then 
there  was  the  report  of  a  pistol,  with  the  hiss  of  a  bullet,  and 


ADDRESS  OF  REV.  MICHAEL  CLUNE,  D.D.  25 

in  this  world  Mr.  Lincoln  saw  and  heard  no  more.  There  was 
mourning  in  all  the  land.  From  the  palace  of  the  merchant 
prince  to  the  cot  of  the  late  slave  were  wailing  and  wringing  of 
hands.  For  the  great  heart  that  had  yearned  over  the  country 
was  still  and  cold,  and  the  eyes  that  rained  down  tears  when 
Ellsworth  fell  were  dim  forevermore. 

As  the  President  had  God's  name  ever  upon  his  lips  and  God's 
work  in  heart  and  hand,  may  we  not  fondly  hope  that  as  the 
clouds  rifted  above  his  country's  horizon  he  saw  a  glimmering 
of  the  infinite  dawn,  and  that  those  few  days  of  unwonted  exalta- 
tion were  to  him  the  prelude  to  the  unending  peace? 


WILLIAM  HOWARD  TAFT 

Twenty-seventh  President  of  the  United  States. 
Born  at  Cincinnati,  Ohio,  September  15,  1857.  Yale, 
1878,  second  in  a  class  of  121.  Solicitor  General  of 
the  United  States,  1890-92.  First  Civil  Governor  of 
the  Philippine  Islands.  Secretary  of  War  in  cabinet 
of  President  Roosevelt.  President  of  United  States, 
1909-13.  Chief  Justice  of  United  States,  1921.  Mem- 
ber of  the  National  Republican  Club. 


ADDRESS    O; 

PRESIDENT  TAFT 


[President  Taft's  address  was  devoted  almost  wholly  to  na- 
tional issues  of  the  period,  and  is  carried  only  in  part. — Editors.] 


Mr.  President,  gentlemen  of  the  Eepublican  Clnb,  and  fellow- 
gnests:  The  birthday  of  the  man  whose  memory  we  celebrate 
to-night  is  an  appropriate  occasion  for  renewing  our  expressions 
of  respect  and  affection  for  the  Republican  party,  and  our  pledges 
to  keep  the  part  which  it  plays  in  the  history  of  this  country  as 
high  and  as  useful  as  it  was  during  the  administration  of  Abra- 
ham Lincoln.  The  trials  which  he  had  to  undergo  as  President, 
the  political  storms  which  the  party  had  to  weather  during  the 
Civil  War,  the  divisions  in  the  party  itself  between  the  radical 
anti-slavery  element  and  those  who  were  most  conservative  in 
observing  the  constitutional  limitations,  are  most  interesting 
reading,  and  serve  to  dwarf  and  minimize  the  trials  through 
which  the  Republican  party  is  now  passing,  and  restore  a  sense 
of  proportion  to  those  who  allow  themselves  to  be  daunted  and 
discouraged,  in  the  face  of  a  loss  of  popular  confidence  thought 
to  be  indicated  by  the  tone  of  the  press. 

We  among  the  Republicans  may  be  discouraged  when  we  con- 
sider our  own  dissensions,  but  when  we  look  to  the  possibility  of 
any  united  action  on  the  part  of  the  Democrats  for  any  policy  or 


28  THE  REPUBLICAN   CLUB 

any  line  of  policies  we  must  take  courage.  It  was  General  Grant 
who  said  that  when  he  first  went  into  battle  he  had  a  great  deal 
of  fear,  but  he  overcame  that  feeling  by  maintaining  in  his  mind 
the  constant  thought  how  much  more  afraid  his  opponent  was. 
And  so,  we,  who  find  ourselves  at  times  given  over  to  the  thought 
that  Bepublican  control  is  at  an  end  should  not  forget  to  con- 
sider not  only  our  own  factional  strife,  but  also  that  of  our 
ancient  enemy.  If  the  Democratic  party  were  a  solid,  cohesive 
opposition,  guided  by  one  principle  and  following  the  same  eco- 
nomic views  as  a  whole,  the  situation  would  be  far  more  dis- 
couraging than  it  is.  The  Republican  party  has  been  the  party 
responsible  for  the  Government  for  the  last  seventeen  years.  It 
has  discharged  those  responsibilities  with  wonderful  success.  The 
problems  growing  out  of  the  Spanish  "War  and  those  which  have 
come  from  the  rapid  accumulation  of  wealth,  and  the  greed  for 
power  of  its  accumulators,  it  has  fallen  to  the  party  to  meet,  and 
while  they  have  not  yet  all  had  a  perfect  solution,  the  record  is 
one  of  which  we  have  no  reason  to  be  ashamed. 

Mr.  Roosevelt  aroused  the  country  and  the  people  to  the  danger 
we  were  in  of  having  all  our  politics  and  all  our  places  of  govern- 
mental authority  controlled  in  corporate  interests  and  to  serve 
the  greed  of  selfish  but  powerful  men.  During  his  two  terms  of 
office,  by  what  almost  may  be  compared  to  a  religious  crusade,  he 
aroused  the  people  to  the  point  of  protecting  themselves  and  the 
public  interest  against  the  aggressions  of  corporate  greed,  and 
left  public  opinion  in  an  apt  condition  to  bring  about  the  reforms 
needed  to  clinch  his  policies  and  to  make  them  permanent  in  the 
form  of  enacted  law. 

But  as  an  inevitable  aftermath  of  such  agitation,  we  find  a 
condition  of  hysteria  on  the  part  of  certain  individuals,  and  on 
the  part  of  others  a  condition  of  hypocrisy  manifesting  itself  in 


ADDRESS  OF  PRESIDENT  TAFT 


the  blind  denunciation  of  all  wealth  and  in  the  impeachment  of 
the  motives  of  men  of  the  highest  character,  and  by  demagogic 
appeals  to  the  imagination  of  a  people  greatly  aroused  upon  the 
subject  of  purity  and  honesty  in  the  administration  of  govern- 
ment. The  tendency  is  to  resent  attachment  to  party  or  party 
organization,  and  to  an  assertion  of  individual  opinion  and  pur- 
pose at  the  expense  of  party  disciple.  The  movement  is  toward 
factionalism  and  small  groups,  rather  than  toward  large  party 
organizations,  and  the  leaders  of  the  party  organization  are  sub- 
jected to  the  severest  attacks  and  to  the  questioning  of  their 
motives  without  any  adequate  evidence  to  justify  it. 

I  am  far  from  saying  that  the  Republican  party  is  perfect. 
No  party  which  has  exercised  such  power  as  it  has  exercised  for 
the  last  seventeen  years  could  be  expected  to  maintain  either  in 
its  rank  and  file  or  in  its  management  men  of  the  purest  and 
highest  motives  only.  And  I  am  the  last  one  to  advocate  any 
halt  in  the  prosecution  and  condemnation  of  Republicans,  how- 
ever prominent  and  powerful,  whose  conduct  requires  criminal  or 
other  prosecution  and  condemnation.  It  should  be  well  under- 
stood that  with  the  Republican  party  in  its  present  condition, 
with  its  various  divisions  subjected  to  the  cross  fire  of  its  own 
newspapers  and  its  own  factions,  any  halt  or  failure  on  the  part 
of  those  in  authority  to  punish  and  condemn  corruption  or  cor- 
rupt methods  will  be  properly  visited  upon  the  party  itself,  how- 
ever many  good  men  it  contains. 

We  shall  be  called  upon  to  respond  to  the  charge  in  the  next 
campaign  that  the  tariff,  for  which  we  are  responsible,  has  raised 
prices.  If  the  people  listen  to  reasonable  argument,  it  will  be 
easy  to  demonstrate  that  high  prices  proceed  from  an  entirely 
different  cause,  and  that  the  present  tariff,  being  largely  a  re- 
vision downward,  except  with  respect  to  silks  and  liquors,  which 


30  THE  REPUBLICAN   CLUB 

are  luxuries,  cannot  be  charged  with  having  increased  any  prices. 
But  this  will  not  prevent  our  Democratic  friends  from  arguing 
on  the  principle  of  "post  hoc,  propter  hoc,"  that  because  high 
prices  followed  the  tariff,  therefore  they  are  the  result  of  it. 
And  we  must  not  be  blind  to  the  weight  of  such  an  argument  in 
an  electoral  campaign.  The  reason  for  the  rise  in  the  cost  of 
necessities  can  easily  be  traced  to  the  increase  in  our  measure  of 
values,  the  precious  metal,  gold,  and  possibly  in  some  cases  to  the 
combinations  in  restraint  of  trade.  The  question  of  the  tariff 
must  be  argued  out.  The  prejudice  created  by  the  early  attacks 
upon  the  bill  and  the  gross  misrepresentations  of  its  character 
must  be  met  by  a  careful  presentation  of  the  facts  as  to  the  con- 
tents of  the  bill  and  also  as  to  its  actual  operation  and  statistics 
shown  thereby.  I  believe  we  have  a  strong  case  if  we  can  only 
get  it  into  the  minds  of  the  people.  Should  disaster  follow  us 
and  the  Republican  majority  in  the  House  become  a  minority  in 
the  next  House,  it  may  be  possible  that  in  the  Democratic  exercise 
of  its  power,  the  people  of  this  country  will  see  which  is  the  party 
of  accomplishment,  which  is  the  party  of  arduous  deeds  done,  and 
which  is  the  party  of  words  and  irresponsible  opposition. 

I  only  want  one  more  word.  From  time  to  time  attacks  are 
made  upon  the  administration,  on  the  ground  that  its  policy  tends 
to  create  a  panic  in  Wall  Street  and  to  disturb  business.  All  I 
have  to  say  upon  that  subject  is  this:  That  certainly  no  one  re- 
sponsible for  a  Government  like  ours  could  foolishly  run  amuck 
in  business  and  destroy  values  and  confidence  just  for  the  pleasure 
of  doing  so.  No  one  has  a  motive  as  strong  as  the  administration 
in  power  to  cultivate  and  strengthen  business  confidence  and 
business  prosperity.  But  it  does  rest  with  the  National  Govern- 
ment to  enforce  the  law,  and  if  the  enforcement  of  the  law  is 
not  consistent  with  the  present  method  of  carrying  on  business, 


ADDRESS  OF  PRESIDENT  TAFT  31 

then  it  does  not  speak  well  for  the  present  methods  of  conducting 
business,  and  they  must  be  changed  to  conform  to  the  law.  There 
was  no  promise  on  the  part  of  the  Kepublican  party  to  change 
the  anti-trust  law  except  to  strengthen  it,  or  to  authorize  mo- 
nopoly and  a  suppression  of  competition  and  the  control  of  prices, 
and  those  who  look  forward  to  such  a  change  cannot  now  visit 
the  responsibility  for  their  mistake  on  innocent  persons.  Of 
course  the  Government  at  Washington  can  be  counted  on  to  en- 
force the  law  in  the  way  best  calculated  to  prevent  a  destruction 
of  public  confidence  in  business,  but  that  it  must  enforce  the  law 
goes  without  saying. 

I  am  glad  to  be  present  at  this  meeting  of  the  Eepublican  Club 
of  New  York  and  here  meet  your  distinguished  Governor,  whose 
name  is  such  a  power  before  the  people  of  this  State  and  of  the 
country,  that  to  lose  him  as  a  candidate  for  Governor  by  his  vol- 
untary withdrawal  is  to  lose  the  strongest  asset  that  the  Eepub- 
lican party  has  in  the  State  to  enable  it  to  win  at  the  next 
election. 

I  am  glad  to  be  here  at  the  meeting  of  the  Eepublican  Club 
on  Lincoln's  birthday,  because  my  knowledge  and  information 
with  respect  to  the  club  is  that  it  stands  for  stalwart  Eepublic- 
anism,  believes  in  party  organization  and  party  discipline,  but  in- 
sists on  the  highest  ideals  and  methods  in  formulating  the  policies 
of  the  party  and  carrying  them  out. 


THE    TWENTY-FIFTH 

ANNUAL   LINCOLN    DINNER 

of  the 

REPUBLICAN    CLUB 

of  the 

City  of  New  York 

At  the  Waldorf-Astoria 

FEBRUARY  13,  1911 


Addresses  of 

HON.   SETH   LOW 

HON.  GEORGE  von  L.  MEYER 

REV.  DR.  FRANK  W.  GUNSAULUS,  D.D. 

EX-PRESIDENT  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 


SETH  LOW 

Born  1850,  died  1916.  Mayor  of  Brooklyn,  1882-86. 
President  Columbia  University.  Delegate  to  the  Hague 
Peace  Conference,  1889.  Mayor  of  New  York,  1902-03. 
President  of  National  Bepublican  Club.  Member  of 
the  New  York  Constitutional  Convention,  1915. 


ADDRESS   OF 

HON.  SETH  LOW 

President  of  the  Club 


Ladies  and  gentlemen,  guests  and  members  of  the  Republican 
Club,  fellow  citizens  and  fellow  Americans:  The  Republican  Club 
of  the  City  of  New  York  welcomes  you  here  to-night  in  the  be- 
loved and  inspiring  name  of  Abraham  Lincoln. 

We  gather  here  year  after  year  on  Lincoln's  Birthday  fondly 
to  recall  the  man  and  his  achievements;  to  pay  grateful  homage 
to  his  memory,  and  to  baptize  ourselves  anew,  if  it  may  be,  with 
his  spirit.  Lincoln's  problems  are  not  our  problems;  but  if  we 
are  to  solve  our  problems  of  to-day  as  Lincoln  and  the  men  of  his 
generation  solved  theirs,  we  must  do  it  in  Lincoln's  spirit  with 
the  same  national  point  of  view,  with  the  same  largeness  of 
heart,  with  the  same  great  patience  and  with  the  same  complete 
trust  in  the  plain  people. 

A  year  or  two  ago  it  was  my  good  fortune  to  take  part  at 
Alton,  Illinois,  in  the  50th  anniversary  celebration  of  the  Lin- 
coln-Douglas debate,  which  was  held  in  that  place.  There  I  came 
upon  this  incident.  Our  townsman,  Horace  White,  whom  many 
of  you  know  as  an  old  man  now,  was  then  a  reporter  for  the 
newspapers;  and  he  went  through  that  pilgrimage  with  Abraham 
Lincoln  throughout  that  whole  debate.     One  day  he  said  to  him: 


36  THE   REPUBLICAN   CLUB 

"Mr.  Lincoln,  why  don't  you  turn  the  laugh  oftener  on  Judge 
Douglas?"  as  of  course  Lincoln  was  abundantly  able  to  do.  Lin- 
coln's reply  was:  "Well,  first  of  all,  I  am  so  dead  in  earnest 
about  this  business  that  I  do  not  feel  like  turning  the  laugh  on 
anybody;  secondly,  I  doubt  whether  turning  the  laugh  on  a  man 
makes  many  votes.  In  the  last  analysis  it  is  the  argument  that 
counts."  I  think  we  must  approach  our  problems  of  to-day  with 
that  same  dead  earnestness,  and  we,  too,  must  remember  that  in 
the  last  analysis  it  is  the  argument  that  counts. 

But  the  President  of  the  Eepublican  Club  has  not  the  floor  this 
evening.  The  time  is  dedicated  to  our  guests  who  are  here  to 
speak  to  us  at  the  invitation  of  the  Eepublican  Club;  and  I  have 
the  very  great  pleasure  of  introducing  to  you  as  the  first  speaker 
a  man  whose  reputation  as  a  preacher  is  nation  wide,  and  a  man 
who  as  the  head  of  the  Armour  Technical  Institute  is  now  carry- 
ing out  in  practice  that  old  Biblical  idea,  that  the  head  cannot 
say  to  the  hand:  "I  have  no  need  of  you,,"  and  the  hand  cannot 
say  to  the  head:  "I  have  no  need  of  you."  Dr.  Gunsaulus  is  one 
of  the  very  few  men  born  in  Ohio  whom  it  has  been  my  privilege 
to  know,  who  does  not  hold  public  ofiice;  but  he  comes  from  Il- 
linois, the  State  from  which  Lincoln  went  to  the  Presidency,  and 
in  Illinois,  like  Lincoln,  he  has  pretty  much  everything  he  wants. 

I  have  now  the  great  pleasure  of  introducing  Dr.  Frank  W. 
Gunsaulus : 


REV.  DR.   FRANK  WAKELEY  GTJNSAULTJS 

lecturer;    Yale  Theological  Seminary;    Professional 
Lecturer,  "University  of  Chicago. 


ADDRESS   OF 

REV.  DR.  FRANK  W.  GUNSAULUS 


Mr.  Toastmaster,  ladies  and  gentlemen:  It  is  a  very  uncom- 
fortable incident,  I  assure  you,  which  it  is  mine  to  meet,  that  I 
am  announced  as  one  who  is  to  deliver  an  oration  on  Abraham 
Lincoln.  You  cannot  conceive  of  an  oration  as  the  fitting  mode 
of  portraiture  for  this  simple  and  sublime  man.  For  there  was 
never  an  influential  personality  in  human  annals,  save  William 
the  Silent,  whose  temper  of  soul,  insight,  deliberation  and  faith 
in  the  unspoken  and  unspeakable  right  and  its  future  so  lifted 
him  beyond  and  so  set  at  naught  the  oratorical  speech  as  have 
the  mental  and  moral  excellences  of  Abraham  Lincoln.  He  be- 
longs, as  the  vigorous  Stanton  said,  at  his  passing  from  us,  "to 
the  ages."  The  orator's  art  is  evanescent,  ile  must  have  his 
triumph  at  the  moment.  The  painter  leaves  his  canvas;  the 
architect  lives  in  his  cathedral;  the  poet  reigns  through  ode  or 
sonnet;  the  sculptor  fastens  his  achievement  in  marble;  the 
musician  bequeaths  his  efforts  at  expression  through  his  score; 
but  the  orator's  audience  will  be  gone  soon,  never  to  reassemble, 
and  unless  his  oration  is  so  free  from  oratory  that  it  may  safely 
be  left  to  the  dryest  of  printed  pages,  its  own  fires  duly  quenched, 
he  must  be  content  with  results  that  ill  consort  with  the  calm 
and  majesty,  the  clear-eyed  and  half-adoring  ages  which  belong 
to  Abraham  Lincoln. 


40  THE   REPUBLICAN   CLUB 

When  that  great  road  which  patriotism  has  contemplated  is 
completed  between  Washington  and  Gettysburg,  it  has  been  pro- 
posed by  a  distinguished  friend  of  mine  who  does  not  care  for 
orations,  that  every  so-called  orator  may  be  compelled  to  walk  and 
meditate  on  the  fall  of  oratory  for  the  entire  distance  from  the 
Capitol  of  the  nation  to  that  glorious  place  made  so  renowned  in 
history  of  public  speech  by  something  which  was  more  than  an 
oration  —  the  message  of  the  greatest  man  of  his  time  in  the 
greatest  hour  of  modern  history,  Abraham  Lincoln^s  Gettysburg 
address. 

I  wish  to-night  to  accomplish  another  purpose  than  that  at- 
tained by  elegance  of  speech  or  brilliancy  of  portraiture.  It  is 
my  desire  simply  and  in  the  spirit  which  I  hope  the  genius  of 
Abraham  Lincoln  has  given  to  us,  to  note  something  of  the  edu- 
cational value  of  Lincoln's  character  and  career  in  the  republic. 
And,  not  vainly  to  recur  to  what  I  have  said,  one  of  the  very 
first  things  which  I  think  needs  to  be  considered  with  reference 
to  this  matter  of  public  speech  and  Lincoln's  total  influence  upon 
the  American  mind  is  here  illustrated.  I  mean  the  excellence  of 
his  by-product.  He  was  not  a  great  orator  of  either  the  academic 
or  popular  type.  Yet  he  has  influenced  American  speech  more 
than  even  Webster  and  Wendell  Phillips.  He  has  taught  us  the 
supremacy  of  character,  the  might  of  intellectual  integrity,  while 
he  has  shown  that  eloquence  is  the  illumination  of  things  true, 
lovely,  and  of  good  report,  that  the  brain  and  heart  and  con- 
science of  humanity  need  only  this  illumination  to  obey  these 
divine  behests;  that  the  simple  is  the  sublime;  and  that  he  who 
would  be  trusted  to  lead  a  whole  people  themselves  made  eloquent 
with  a  cause  must  himself  be  the  mouthpiece  of  sound  thinking, 
noble  emotion,  and  unfailing  conscience,  whose  messenger  he  is, 
and  whose  message  when  truly  proclaimed  is  always  eloquence. 


ADDRESS  OF  REV.  DR.  FRANK  W.  GTJNSAULUS,  D.D.  41 

Without  detracting  for  an  instant  from  the  genius  of  Edward 
Everett,  we  often  make  the  comparison  between  the  oration  of 
Edward  Everett  and  the  simple  and  sublime  statements  of  our 
great  President  at  the  dedication  of  the  Gettysburg  battlefield. 
He  was  following  then  the  fortunes  of  true  Republicanism,  of 
real  Democracy,  for  the  units  of  democracy  —  the  material  out 
of  which  republics  are  to  be  made  and  by  which  they  are  to  be 
saved — these  abide  in  the  hearts,  in  the  consciences,  in  the  brains 
of  all  men;  and  after  all  they  are  most  deeply  obedient,  not  to 
the  swift  and  splendid  movement  of  the  orator,  but  rather  to  the 
earnest,  sincere  progress  in  men,  of  reason,  of  love,  and  of  a 
sound  mind.  The  higher  art  which  never  knew  an  artifice  in 
Lincoln's  utterance  will  appear  when  the  loftier  arches  of  the 
temple  of  liberty  and  law  shall  spring  upward  from  the  granite 
bases  of  his  address  at  Gettysburg.  It  has  the  immortal  and  re- 
publicanizing  function  abiding  in  his  personality  as  a  man  of 
men  and  in  his  ideas  and  ideals  which  command  all  men. 

Compare  for  a  moment,  my  friends,  the  great  orator,  William 
Ewart  Gladstone,  with  Abraham  Lincoln.  Ask  to-night  if  there 
has  been  in  the  tide  of  human  affairs  a  notable  volume  of  utter- 
ance so  certain  to  be  forgotten  by  the  coming  student  of  those 
fundamental  principles  which  create  and  re-create  nationalities, 
as  the  magnificent  eloquence  of  the  gpreat  English  Commoner. 
On  the  other  hand,  years  as  they  pass  make  it  clear  that  at  the 
moment  when  the  oratorical  genius  of  Gladstone,  the  oratorical 
passion,  as  Bagehot  tells  us,  which  led  him  to  see  everything  as 
material  for  his  superb  art,  had  seized  this  material  and  he  stood 
in  the  House  of  Commons,  as  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer,  to  say 
that  Jefferson  Davis  had  ''created  a  new  nation" — at  that  mo- 
ment which  was  nearly  fatal  for  his  renown  amongst  the  lovers 
of  justice  and  liberty,  he  was  only  oratorical.    Afterwards,  when 


42  THE  REPUBLICAN   CLTJB 

he  had,  as  he  says,  learned  more  of  the  safety  of  free  govermnent, 
his  was  often  an  eloquence  so  appaling  and  so  clothed  with 
the  instinctive  and  prophetic  vision  of  Lincoln  that  America  is 
willing  to  hear  again  and  again  the  praise  he  gave  our  Constitu- 
tion, whose  spirit  was  saved  by  Lincoln.  When  a  moment  has 
come  which  creates  for  the  orator  his  pitfall,  when  the  imagina- 
tion and  the  fancy,  and  that  fusion  of  thought  and  feeling,  that 
radiancy  of  feeling  over  thought,  have  complete  control  of  the 
mind;  when  all  this  gives  to  a  Gladstone  his  intellectual  and 
spiritual  outlook,  there  stands  at  Washington,  in  all  the  cer- 
tainty and  light  of  his  moral  consciousness,  a  plain  man,  whose 
eminent  contribution  to  the  eloquence  of  mankind  is  not  so  much 
a  critical  personality,  who,  highly  employed,  disdains  mere  ora- 
tory, as  a  real  messenger  who  is  incarnating  a  message  that  must 
be  made  real  and  plain  to  the  common  people,  whose  interpreter 
and  prophet  also  he  is.  Lincoln's  attitude  and  temper  were  anti- 
monarchial.  He  never  dictated,  nor  was  the  national  mind  ever 
overborne  or  even  dazzled  by  him.  Here  is  a  characteristic  which 
inheres  in  our  republicanism.  The  uncle  of  Washington  stated 
it  when  he  said  to  Washington  as  a  young  man,  and  he  was  right : 
"Avoid  a  dictatorial  style."  There  is  a  human  way  of  saying 
anything,  and  there  is  a  way  of  saying  the  same  thing  which 
puts  that  same  thing  outside  of  the  interest  of  an  audience.  This 
is  of  the  unrepublican  manner.  It  inheres  in  a  despotic  type  of 
mind. 

The  oratory  which  announces  itself,  either  when  mounted 
upon  the  traditions  of  the  past  or  some  lonely  eminence  of  genius, 
which  is  isolated  from  the  experience  of  the  public  mind  and 
imperious  over  it,  has  come  with  the  history  of  monarchies,  rather 
than  republics.  The  oratory  of  republicanism  never  speaks  at  a 
man,  hardly  ever  to  a  man,  but  always  with  a  man.     Such  was 


ADDRESS  OF  REV.  DR.  FRANK  W.  GUNSATJLXJS,  D.D.  43 

the  eloquence  of  our  ^eatest  Republican,  Abraham  Lincoln. 

The  secret  of  Abraham  Lincoln's  power  in  speech  lay  in  the 
educative  value  which  he  gave  to  the  process  of  reasoning,  the 
growth  of  conscience,  the  nourishing  of  noble  emotion  in  the  na- 
tional consciousness.  It  was  not  a  performance  before  men;  it 
was  not  a  conflict  with  men;  it  was  an  exciting  within  men  of 
all  generous  impulses,  the  revealing  within  men  of  high  and 
original  vision,  the  emancipating  and  strengthening  from  within 
men  of  each  man's  unsuspected  moral  purpose,  and  the  touching 
of  strings  of  music  within  the  human  soul  which  the  soul  had 
never  named  to  itself;  and  all  the  power  of  Abraham  Lincoln  in 
the  creation  of  that  new  republic,  which  is  a  republic  of  thought 
and  inspiration  and  high  ideals,  was  manifested  in  the  astonish- 
ing mental  and  moral  utterances  by  which  he  simply  gathered 
the  manhood  of  his  audience  and  gave  it  all  back  to  his  audience 
in  fresh  statement  and  winged  power.  In  him,  as  he  spoke,  every 
man  saw  glorified  that  which  every  man  had  contributed  out  of 
his  own  soul  to  the  great  and  revealing  soul  of  the  orator  himself. 

As  Abraham  Lincoln  enters  his  second  century  we  see  the  same 
form  and  feature  which  have  educated  republican  sentiment  of 
the  finest  type  and  hope.  There  drift  from  the  regions  to  which 
he  has  gone  the  same  genial  winds  bearing  fragrance  and  in- 
spiration and  music;  but  it  is  all  a  part  of  his  essential  repub- 
licanism. It  is  so  near,  so  human;  it  so  commands  by  persuading 
us  of  its  excellence.  No  wonder  is  it  that  so  many  still  seek  to 
look  like  him  or  speak  like  him.  In  this  many  have  been  feeble 
and  they  have  driveled,  of  course.  As  Lincoln  has  survived  our 
oratory  about  him,  so  he  passes  on,  having  successfuly  lived  be- 
yond the  story  teller.  In  it  all,  more  and  more,  we  behold  a  man 
without  whose  entire  personality  it  is  impossible  to  conceive  of 
the  greatest  fortunes  of  the  republic.    So  much  an  unit  was  he, 


44  THE   REPUBLICAN   CLUB 

such  an  integral  career  was  woven  of  one  and  the  same  texture, 
so  constructed  was  his  eminence  of  the  constant  and  inviolable 
moral  fibre,  that  we  must  have  him  all,  and  all  of  him,  for  our 
education. 

The  first  ting  that  comes  to  a  man  interested  in  the  education 
of  the  republic,  it  seems  to  me,  is  the  emphasis  which  Lincoln's 
character  and  career  gives  to  his  early  advantages,  the  advantages 
most  of  all  likely  to  be  possessed,  if  not  at  first  enjoyed,  by  a 
majority  of  those  that  compose  the  republic  —  and  by  these  I 
mean  of  course  what  he  loved  to  call  "the  common  people."  I 
mean  what  he  also  called  "the  plain  people."  What  were  some 
of  these  advantages  which  were  made  such  because  they  were 
and  are  of  this  kind  of  American,  for  Abraham  Lincoln?  They 
were  mighty;  they  were  all-powerful  in  the  creation  of  his  char- 
acter. Goethe  says  that  our  greatest  education  is  the  education 
we  give  ourselves.  Lincoln  educated  himself  in  the  best  of  all 
schoolrooms,  if  one  is  seeking  a  fresh  and  fadeless  sort  of  power. 
Nature  —  American  nature  —  was  his  schoolhouse.  Skies  that 
bended  over  his  head  are  our  symbols  of  infinity.  The  waters 
that  ran  close  to  his  feet  are  yet  filled  with  music.  The  stars  at 
night  and  the  clouds  by  day  guided  the  mysterious  fancies  of  his 
wondrous  nature.  They  will  guide  ours,  if  we  are  willing.  All 
the  winds  that  came  upon  the  cheek  of  this  boy  came  with  an 
influence  that  entered  by  thrilling  sympathies  into  his  thoughts 
and  character.  He  gained,  then  and  there,  the  most  luminous, 
juicy  and  growing  vocabulary  which  can  come  to  any  speaker. 
I  mean  the  vocabulary  of  nature.  He  learned  from  nature,  this 
great  schoolroom,  by  such  processes  of  growth  as  forebade  him 
ever  being  satisfied  with  or  misled  by  the  machinations  of  the 
politicians  or  efforts  of  any  to  substitute  machinery  for  growth 
in  nation-building.     Give  a  man  nature  in  the  early  years  and 


ADDRESS  OF  REV.  DR.   FRANK  W.  GUNSAULUS,  D.D.  45 


put  him  into  any  profession  where  he  shall  have  to  explain  or 
enforce  truth,  and  he  will  use  the  language  of  growth.  He  knows 
the  tragedy  and  mystery  of  the  breaking  seed.  He  is  not  sur- 
prised at  the  rain  falling  on  the  just  and  the  unjust.  He  is  an 
evolutionist,  not  a  revolutionist.  He  cannot  endure  for  a  mo- 
ment unnatural  processes  which  are  proposed  through  legislation 
alone  to  the  end  of  manufacturing  a  state  of  affairs  which,  there- 
fore, has  no  inner  vitality.  It  has  also  no  power  of  growth  and, 
therefore,  it  is  denied  the  possibility  of  being  improved.  All  the 
way  through  Abraham  Lincoln's  political  manner  of  thinking 
there  is  the  movement,  the  method,  the  ideal  of  growth,  as  in 
nature;  and  all  the  way  through  his  dealings  with  men  there 
come  out  of  that  great  schoolroom  in  which  he  sat  as  a  student 
under  the  tutelage  of  the  Almighty,  illustrations,  metaphors,  sly 
hints  that  are  as  sweet  as  the  wind  and  as  bright  as  the  stars, 
and  the  use  of  nature's  own  phrases  by  so  sincere  a  man  made 
the  national  mind  more  natural  and  vital.  Has  your  boy  the  ad- 
vantages of  such  a  schoolroom? 

Another  advantage  this  boy  had  was  the  advantage  of  poverty. 
Nicholas  Poussin,  having  failed  to  reach  the  height  towards 
which  his  genius  seemed  to  point  and  having  thus  disappointed 
his  best  friends,  was  met  one  day  by  a  serious-minded  artist  who 
knew  beauty  and  truth  together,  and  he  said:  'Toussin,  you  lack 
one  thing,  and  only  one  to  make  you  a  great  painter."  I  sup- 
pose the  rich  painter  put  his  hands  in  his  pockets  and  touched 
the  coin  so  much  like  the  coin  which  you  and  I  grasp  in  days 
of  bargain  and  sale  and  luxury,  when  false  ideals  of  life  and 
education  permit  us  to  neglect  the  unpurchaseable.  He  was 
thinking  he  might  be  able  to  buy  this  superior  thing.  "No," 
said  his  friend,  "the  thing  without  which  you  shall  not  become 
a  great  painter  is  something  you  cannot  buy;  it  is  poverty." 


46  THE  REPUBLICAN   CLUB 

When  God  gets  in  earnest  about  a  man  on  this  planet,  he  strips 
him  of  everything  that  shall  in  any  way  overweight  him  or 
hinder  his  course  towards  the  realizing  of  the  truest  ideals.  All 
the  way  through  the  history  of  that  moral  genius  which  identi- 
iies  itself  with  the  great  experiences  of  nations,  there  work  the 
healthful  limitations  that  keep  the  soul  strong  and  the  organiz- 
ing elements  of  humanity  in  their  richness  and  their  activity. 
These  are  met  in  the  gift  of  poverty.  He  had  another  immense 
advantage  in  his  education.  He  was  a  man  of  labor.  Has  your 
boy  that  advantage?  Is  the  American  youth  of  to-day  limited 
in  any  possible  manner  so  that,  as  Emerson  hints,  like  the  shot 
in  the  steel  walls  of  the  cannon  there  is  an  inevitable  direction 
in  his  life?  Are  we  not  denying  our  boys  to-day  the  culture  of 
labor?  Here  was  a  man  whose  brain  reached  to  the  very  ends  of 
his  fingers.  Gray  matter  had  gotten  into  that  man's  arms.  His 
sinews,  strong  as  steel,  were  as  responsive  to  that  brain  as  the 
strings  of  a  violin  were  responsive  to  the  touch  of  Paganini.  The 
whole  man  was  surcharged  with  all  those  spiritualities  that  abide 
in  the  finer  and  higher  dome  of  soul.  You  will  never  have  a 
great  American  until  every  American  in  the  most  republican  man- 
ner shall  win  in  himself  the  gift  and  privilege  of  labor.  No  man 
is  educated  in  his  head  alone.  The  church  can  take  the  heart. 
The  school  can  take  the  head.  Life's  necessities  can  take  the 
hand.  The  school  will  never  be  a  great  school  until  it  takes  all 
of  the  man,  head,  hand  and  heart.  Until  the  head  is  filled  with 
heart's  blood  to  give  these  ideas  warmth  and  passion,  and  until 
the  hand  has  done  what  the  head  dreams  and  what  the  heart 
feels  is  duty,  there  is  no  clearness.  There  is  no  intellectual  mas- 
tery until  a  man  can  thus  distribute  his  brain  over  his  entire 
body  and  pervade  and  unify  his  faculties  with  soul. 

Abraham  Lincoln  was  trained,  as  great  men  have  been  trained 


ADDRESS  OF  REV.  DR.  FRANK  W.  GUNSATJLTJS,  D.D.  47 

for  national  and  international  revolution  and  evolution,  in  the 
camp  of  the  foe.  When  Providence  wished  to  lift  Holland  out  of 
the  perils  of  the  sea  and  make  her  master  of  the  ideals  of  those 
Puritans  and  Pilgrims  who  should  come  to  her  coast  to  learn  how 
to  hold  town  meetings,  when  the  Holland  represented  at  this 
table  and  in  this  city  in  such  generosity  of  genius  and  public 
spirit  was  to  hurl  the  Spaniard  back,  God  had  educated  his  Wil- 
liam the  Silent  in  the  court  of  Charles  the  V.  of  Spain.  When 
there  came  the  moment  in  this  same  long  conflict  for  justice  and 
freedom  and  the  battle  was  to  be  fought  for  republicanism  and 
righteousness  in  England,  God  gave  to  the  blood  of  the  Stuart 
a  kinsman  of  Charles  the  I.,  the  impulse  and  the  ideal;  and  the 
young  Roundhead  felt  the  muscles  of  the  Cavalier  at  Hinchin- 
brook.  So  Oliver  Cromwell  was  prepared  by  the  royalist  to  take 
off  a  royal  head.  When  heaven  had  gathered  the  people  of 
earth  to  look  toward  the  American  colonies,  and  here  God  sought 
to  deliver  the  land's  destiny  and  give  her  a  spiritual  fortune 
through  the  self-education  of  free  men  under  law.  He  educated 
His  Washington  in  the  army  of  a  British  soldier;  made  him  a 
surveyor  at  the  order  of  the  British  throne.  At  length,  when 
God  would  smite  slavery  and  destroy  its  hateful  presence,  He 
bred  His  Lincoln  in  a  slave  State,  educated  his  conscience  in  sight 
of  the  monster's  activity.  In  those  early  hours  when  he  was 
recipient  of  all  the  impressions  that  unfold  in  the  lifetime  of 
wisdom,  his  open  eye  beheld  its  tyranny  and  cruelty.  Lincoln 
never  mistook  the  mighty  power  of  greed,  pride  and  ambition 
behind  human  slavery.  There  he  became  familiar  with  the  re- 
sources and  the  tremendous  activities  that  came  out  of  the 
haughty  and  athletic  wickedness  of  the  slave  power,  and  his 
knowledge  of  the  better  humanity  of  the  South,  which,  like  Jef- 
ferson and  Washington,  hated  or  feared  slavery,  never  failed  him. 


48  THE  REPUBLICAN   CLUB 

This  was  not  an  uneducated  man.  For  the  most  part,  ladies 
and  gentlemen,  this  is  the  kind  of  education  that  the  great  mass 
at  the  base  of  this  pyramid  called  the  American  public  must  have. 
Out  of  these  advantages  the  best  servants  of  progress  have  been 
educated — shall  we  not  say,  without  them  none  has  been  edu- 
cated? It  would  be  better  indeed  for  the  top  of  the  pyramid  if 
we  had  the  education  of  nature,  the  education  of  the  limitations 
of  poverty,  the  education  of  labor,  all  so  continuously  working 
at  the  bottom  that  our  democracy  on  which  we  rest  so  broadly- 
based  might  guarantee  us  a  true  aristocracy.  This  boy's  whole 
life  gave  the  impulse  of  naturalness  and  an  essential  republican- 
ism to  all  his  activity,  because  he  was  not  a  child  of  privilege, 
and  because  he  could  certainly  understand  this,  that  at  the  very 
bottom  of  this  pyramid  is  a  democracy  out  of  which  there  shall 
come  the  aristocracy  of  intellect  and  the  aristocracy  of  character 
whose  leader  he  was. 

The  essential  power  in  any  truly  Republican  State  must  al- 
ways lie  in  its  ability  to  continue  intelligently  the  history  of  the 
past.  The  great  man  of  a  republic  is  a  man  who  must  so  honor 
the  past  in  his  own  personality,  in  the  quality  of  his  mind,  in 
his  temperament,  in  his  attitude  towards  all  questions  of  life,  as 
to  bring  the  whole  past  up  to  date  in  a  living  personality  and 
influence.  He  must  harvest  the  years  that  are  gone  in  order  that 
in  his  seed  bag  there  may  be  the  most  golden  grains  for  the 
larger  harvest  of  the  future. 

Here  was  the  secret  of  the  greatness  of  Abraham  Lincoln. 
Here  is  his  essential  republicanism.  He  knew  enough  of  man's 
soul  and  history  to  see  that  republicanism  is  not  a  matter  of 
yesterday.  He  had  so  vast  a  retrospective  that  when  he  spoke 
he  had  room  for  the  massiveness  of  his  thought;  and  freety  did 
he  move  around  with  the  great  centuries  behind  him.    They  were 


ADDRESS  OF  REV.  DR.  FRANK  W.  GUNSAULUS,  D.D.  49 

in  his  consciousness.  He  saw  that  just  government  received  its 
invincible  impulses  toward  freedom  from  the  alliance  of  freedom 
and  law  in  the  long  past,  with  which  he  was  perfectly  familiar. 
He  had  the  first  profound  and  enlightening  history  of  man  in  the 
Bible  which  he  knew  so  well.  As  he  walked  with  Moses  out 
from  Egypt  and  followed  him  as  he  should  follow  him  at  the 
last  in  history,  dying  as  Moses  died  this  side  of  Canaan,  never 
realizing  here  how  much  man  loved  and  honored  him,  cruelly 
murdered  as  Moses  was  kissed  to  sleep  by  the  lips  of  Almighty 
God,  he  could  not  stop  at  Sinai.  He  went  on  in  his  own  moral 
development  and  he  saw  while  he  mused  at  the  foot  of  the  cross 
on  Calvary  the  true  vision  of  man's  worth.  He  obtained  there 
an  estimate  of  the  common  man,  so  much  more  clear  to  him  in 
the  long  years  of  his  public  work,  that  whether  black  or  white, 
bond  or  free,  he  knew  that  a  man  in  God's  eyes  was  worth  the 
tragedy  of  the  Cross. 

He  saw  that  the  marks  of  valuation  upon  any  man  were  marks 
which  had  been  placed  there  through  the  agonizing  hours  of 
Gethsemane  and  that  midnight  of  Golgotha.  Here  was  and  is 
your  truly  progressive  Christianity,  and  here  was  and  is  all  ad- 
vancing republicanism.  He  saw  that  institutions  exist  for  hu- 
manity, and  not  humanity  for  institutions.  He  studied  the  Man 
of  Galilee  as  He  took  into  His  one  hand  a  certain  institution,  the 
Sabbath,  a  most  delicate  thing,  the  most  elusive  thing  that  any 
thinker  may  handle,  for  it  is  not  a  visible  institution,  but  an  in- 
visible one.  He  saw  Him  put  humanity  in  His  other  hand,  and 
behold,  the  Sabbath  was  outweighed  by  humanity,  and  Jesus 
Christ  said,  "The  Sabbath  belongs  to  man  and  not  man  to  the 
Sabbath."  He  had  found  the  illumination  of  a  principle.  So 
Lincoln  demonstrated  that  an  institution  at  best  is  only  a  con- 
stitution embodied,  and  it  can  be  reformed  in  the  interest   of 


50  THE  REPUBLICAN   CLTJB 

humanity  or  it  may  be  abolished,  and  constitutions  may   be 
amended. 

He  knew  as  he  studied  the  advance  of  man  in  accordance  with 
the  conception  of  man's  worth  whose  truth  was  established  at 
that  Cross,  something  of  the  necessary  features  to  be  anticipated 
in  the  picture  of  humanity.  Have  I  anticipated,  and  do  you  say 
Lincoln  had  no  such  culture  from  books  as  will  permit  us  to  be- 
lieve that  he  was  conversant  with  these  principles  or  under  the 
sway  of  these  inspirations?  Let  us  look  at  the  facts.  So  far  as 
I  have  investigated,  book  for  book,  this  man  Abraham  Lincoln 
had  the  best  library  of  any  public  man  of  his  period.  Five  of 
those  books  constitute  a  library  of  higher  educative  quality  than 
any  five  feet  of  books  I  ever  heard  of,  especially  if  this  five-foot 
library  be  without  the  Bible  and  William  Shakespeare.  What 
were  five  of  the  books  ?  The  life  of  Washington,  the  Constitution 
of  the  United  States,  Shakespeare,  Bunyan's  Pilgrim's  Progress, 
and  above  them  all,  the  Bible.  He  may  have  added  Eobinson 
Crusoe  and  Aesop's  Fables.  Recent  investigation  upon  my  own 
part  reaching  through  twenty-five  years  and  to  many  of  Lincoln's 
intimates  makes  me  sure  of  the  five  books  just  mentioned.  Many 
another  man,  as  Lincoln  did,  has  learned  English  history  from 
Shakespeare,  and  then  relearned  it  by  the  light  of  the  progressive 
revelation  of  truth  in  the  Bible.  His  story-telling  genius  was 
not  less  grandly  imaginative  at  a  solemn  crisis,  because  it  was 
liberated  by  John  Bunyan.  There  was  as  much  of  the  mystic  in 
Lincoln  as  in  Dante.  But  his  mysticism  was  never  mistiness.  He 
found  not  only  history,  but  a  vaster  look  and  appreciation  of  the 
geography  of  human  nature  delineated  by  Shakespeare.  His  study 
of  Washington,  whose  work  he  was  to  continue  and  help  to  con- 
summate, as  Washington  continued  and  helped  to  consummate 
the  work  of  the  Pilgrim  Fathers,  Oliver  Cromwell,  the  Norman 


ADDRESS  OF  REV.  DR.  FRANK  W.  GUNSAULUS,  D.D.      51 

Barons  at  Runnymede,  and  Alfred  who  was  nine  centuries  away 
— this  study  of  the  man  Washington,  along  with  his  study  of  the 
Constitution  which  Washington  had  made  possible,  and  Lincoln 
was  to  make  a  living  thing,  brought  the  soul  of  our  emancipator 
and  statesman  into  close  relationship  with  all  these  movements 
and  men  which  have  advanced  the  cause  of  just  and  free  gov- 
ernment, each  occasion  surpassing  the  preceding  in  its  ample 
statement  or  fine  achievement  as  the  ages  came  and  went.  Every 
such  man  as  Washington  as  he  is  studied  in  the  frame  of  the 
event  he  precipitates  and  masters,  or  in  the  monumental  word 
he  leaves  for  us,  seems  to  say  as  he  passes  on: 

"Upon  our  heels  a  fresh  perfection  treads 
Born  of  us,  yet  fated  to  excell  us." 

This  "fresh  perfection"  was  Lincoln,  and  he  comprehended  the 
past  so  fully  and  vitally  that  all  the  present  he  lived  in,  it  blos- 
somed for  the  future.  Consider  the  deeper  history  of  that  State- 
paper  he  left  to  his  time  and  nation — the  Emancipation  Proclama- 
tion! So  clearly  did  he  comprehend  the  advance  of  liberal  ideas, 
the  conquest  of  justice  over  injustice,  that  the  past  easily  fell 
into  his  hands.  How  gracefully  this  gaunt,  awkward,  magnifi- 
cent figure  gathered  the  past,  and  set  himself  walking  from  cen- 
tury to  century  with  the  great  men!  Here  were  the  eminent 
milestones — the  State-papers  of  Anglo-Saxon  civilization,  every 
one  of  them  born  out  of  a  revolution  produced  by  the  fundamental 
ideas  which  Lincoln  found  in  the  Lord's  prayer  with  its  father- 
hood of  God  and  its  brotherhood  of  man.  All  these  revolutions 
are  wheels  within  wheels;  they  serve  the  larger  evolution.  Here, 
a  thousand  years  ago,  stood  Alfred,  with  his  ten  dooms  and  his 
treaty  of  Wedmore,  which  was  the  result  of  an  education,  the 
result  of  the  rude  eloquence  sounding  in  the  woods  and  on  the 


■  tOi-i/^f 


'"•"'^«'rv«:,U,«o„ 


62  THE  REPUBLICAN   CLUB 

shores  in  behalf  of  the  rights  of  the  common  man — ^the  man  with- 
out privilege.  The  careful  and  serious  measurement  of  the  future 
which  had  been  developing  with  this  eloquence  was  a  measure- 
ment of  the  strength  and  of  the  influence  of  the  foe.  This  first 
State-paper  was  only  a  beginning.  Years  passed,  and  this  most 
radical  product  up  to  that  time,  the  treaty  of  Wedmore,  had  be- 
come a  platform.  On  that  platform,  there  stood  in  that  age  men 
like  the  Lincoln  of  ours,  men  of  reason,  men  of  judgment,  men 
of  great  kindness,  men  of  pervasive  goodness.  They  argued  and 
appealed,  and  out  of  their  eloquence  there  came  the  second  great 
State-paper,  Magna  Charta.  Then  respectability  in  politics  said 
"This  is  impossible ;  beyond  this  is  midnight  or  peril,"  but  at  once 
that  great  document  became  a  platform.  Standing  on  Magna 
Charta,  another  race  of  reasoning  patriots  came,  who  argued  and 
placed  before  the  popular  heart  inspiring  ideals,  and  out  of  that 
great  State-paper,  Magna  Charta,  there  came  triumphantly  the 
Mayflower  compact.  Here  conservatism  stopped,  and  Europe  said, 
"It  is  dangerous  for  society  that  men  should  go  a  step  further 
than  this."  But  the  fact  was  that  the  men  who  reasoned  out 
Alfred's  treaty  of  Wedmore  and  compelled  the  utterance  of  the 
Magna  Charta  were  only  primitives  and  progenitors,  and  as  the 
treaty  of  Wedmore  invited  an  eloquence  and  stimulated  an  argu- 
ment that  produced  Magna  Charta,  so  Magna  Charta  stimulated 
an  eloquence  and  nourished  an  argument  that  produced  the  May- 
flower Compact.  And  here  was  a  new  platform.  Here  stood  an- 
other race  of  eloquent  men.  The  argument,  the  assault  upon 
wrong,  all  these  came;  and  out  from  that  argument  and  assault 
against  injustice  there  came  the  Declaration  of  Independence. 
Conservatism  cried,  "This  is  the  end!"  But  was  the  human  soul 
dead?  Had  God  abdicated  and  left  the  Divine  throne  vacant? 
Were  the  elements  that  create  human  liberty  and  law  and  foster 


ADDRESS  OF  EEV.  DR.  FRANK  W.  GUNSAITLTJS,  D.D.  53 

civilization  to  fail  to  make  good  the  doctrines  of  that  Declara- 
tion of  Independence  ?  The  continuity  of  progressive  ideas  is  like 
a  chain  with  links  of  steel,  or  rather  like  an  evolution  in  which 
the  lower  finds  its  reason  for  being  as  it  is  completed  in  the 
higher  form.  Alfred  with  his  treaty  of  Wedmore  made  necessary 
the  Great  Charter  with  the  Norman  barons,  and  the  quickened 
mind  of  a  new  era  made  necessary  the  Mayflower  Compact  among 
men  like  Bradford  and  Carver  of  Plymouth..  The  same  forces 
made  necessary  the  Declaration  of  Independence  as  it  left  the 
hands  of  Thomas  Jefferson.  Was  civilization  to  stop?  Some- 
times, when  I  hear  the  solemn  protestations  of  what  is  called  con- 
servatism, it  seems  to  me  that  only  a  total  lack  of  understanding 
of  human  history  can  account  for  the  somnolence  of  the  dreaming 
out  of  which  these  feeble  objections  to  progress  come.  This  tre- 
mendous stream  is  organized  in  the  heights  of  the  ideal,  this 
flood  of  our  ideas,  hopes,  admirations  and  loyalties  in  the  direc- 
tion of  the  good  which  is  seeking  the  sea  and  will  never  stop 
until  it  reaches  the  ocean,  singing  its  way  down  from  the  moun- 
tain snows  in  the  land  of  high  emprise,  has  its  impulse  from  the 
throne  of  God — and  I  aver  that  the  thought  that  this  current 
shall  stop  with  even  our  present  achievements  in  popular  gov- 
ernment is  the  contradiction  of  all  intelligence  and  of  all  history. 
It  was  as  certain  that  if  Alfred  and  the  treaty  of  Wedmore  in 
time  so  worked  their  ideas  into  men  that  they  produced  Magna 
Charta,  and  Magna  Charta  and  the  Norman  Barons  likewise  pro- 
duced the  Mayflower  Compact,  and  the  Mayflower  Compact  and 
the  Pilgrims  produced  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  then  a 
new  era  of  argument  and  eloquence  would  come.  It  did  come, 
and  in  turn  there  came  also  the  greatest  State-paper  of  them  all 
— the  Emancipation  Proclamation  of  Abraham  Lincoln.  Every 
great  leader  of  Republicanism  must  be  himself  the  true  recipient 


54  THE   REPUBLICAN   CLUB 


of  historical  currents.  He  must  do  more  than  embody  them  in 
institutions.  He  must  incarnate  and  communicate  their  spirit, 
their  purpose,  their  achievement  unto  and  into  his  fellow  men. 
Because  he  made  true  republicanism  contagious  and  progressive, 
Abraham  Lincoln  is  worth  more  than  anything  Abraham  Lincoln 
said  or  did.  The  personality  that  conveys  this  quality  of  mind 
to  all  others — the  quality  of  mental  self-respect  with  the  ability 
to  receive  out  of  the  past  and  give  unstained  to  the  future  all 
precious  legacies — this  is  indeed  the  central  living  shrine  of  the 
very  genius  of  our  republican  nation. 

The  conflict  thus  attained — for  heroic  humanity  attains  crises 
— was  indeed  a  collision  of  the  mightiest  ideas  of  government 
the  world  has  known — the  two  aged,  and  yet  unaging  concep- 
tions of  human  society.  The  quivering  point  of  the  tragedy  was 
this,  that  it  all  occurred  in  the  soul  of  Abraham  Lincoln.  The 
two  seas  met  and  swirled  in  his  great  heart.  There  were  two 
distinct  and  powerful  currents  of  political  philosophy,  very  old 
indeed,  which  swept  over  the  England  of  the  Seventeenth  Cen- 
tury; and  they  came  to  this  land.  Both  of  them  proceeded  vis- 
ibly out  of  the  heart  of  what  came  to  be  a  civil  war — the  only 
civil  war  with  which  our  own  in  1860-1865  may  be  compared. 
One  of  these  streams  arrived  and  was  content  in  our  Southland, 
created  the  city  of  Jamestown,  then  a  hamlet,  named  after  a 
royal  despot,  a  king  who  persecuted  Puritanism  because  absolu- 
tion in  government  was  hostile  to  its  ideals.  Propitious,  indeed, 
was  every  soft  wind;  and  the  soil  welcomed  to  its  luxury  the 
grace  and  gayety  and  more  formal  religiousness  of  the  Cavalier. 
On  and  through  the  South  this  movement  made  its  way,  after  its 
own  manner.  It  preserved  its  aristocracy  of  manner  and  its 
pride  of  birth.  To  our  Northland  there  came  another  movement 
— that  of  the  English  parliamentary  body  which  had  sought  to 


ADDRESS  OF  REV.  DR.  FRANK  W.  GUNSAULUS,  D.D.  55 

recover  the  prerogatives  of  popular  government  from  the  Crown 
which  had  usurped  them.     In  other  towns  and  by  other  names, 
these  two  movements  had  met  in  the  olden  time.     Only  a  little 
time  agone,  upon  the  hills  of  Nottingham,  and  upon  the  hills  of 
Northampton,  they  had  marshalled  their  armies.     Here  at  Not- 
tingham stood  the  royalists   and  the  regiments  of  the  popular 
party.     Here  was  privilege;  and  there  upon  the  hills  of  North- 
ampton stood  equal  rights.     One  was  armed  in  the  person  of  the 
Cavalier ;  the  other  was  armed  in  the  person  of  the  Puritan.    Here 
on  the  Nottingham  heights  is  an  idea,  and  the  idea  on  this  side  is 
that  "might  makes  right."    Here  on  the  Northampton  heights  is 
the  idea  that  "right  makes  might."    On  this  side  also,  where  the 
Cavalier  camps,  is  the  idea  that  government  belongs  to  the  classes 
and  not  to  the  masses.     On  the  other  side,  where  the  Puritan 
camps,  is  the  idea  that  government  belongs  to  the  masses  and  not 
to  the  classes.     At  Marston  Moor  these  gigantic  ideas  collided. 
But  they  could  not  conclude  their  contest,  even  through  a  long 
war  at  that  age,  in  England.     It  required  a  greater  field.     Per- 
haps it  may  be  a  somewhat  doubtful  tale,  but  we  have  loved  to 
think  of  a   night  when   Hampden   and   Cromwell,    holding  the 
Great  Remonstrance  in  their  hands,  agreed  to  come  to  New  Eng- 
land if  the  Great  Remonstrance  failed  to  pass  Parliament.     It 
did  not  fail.     But  the  vision  implied  therein  was  too  large  for 
the  old  England,  and  the  idea  that  government  belongs  to  the 
masses  and  not  to  the  classes,  that  right  and  right  alone  is  might, 
did  perforce  reach  and  constitute  a  New  England,  as  the  other 
idea   came   with   the   Cavalier   to   our   beautiful   Southland   and 
ordered  its  life  and  progress.     The  next   engagement   of  these 
same   forces  was   our   first   revolution,    under   Washington;    the 
latest, — let  us  hope,  the  last  by  the  sword  alone, — was  our  second 
revolution,  under  Abraham  Lincoln. 


56  THE  EEPTJBLICAK  CLTTB 

Now,  I  am  not  here  to-night  to  tell  you  that  the  Cavalier  was 
everything  bad,  and  the  Puritan  everything  good.  New  England 
held  slaves  also,  but  slavery  did  not  and  could  not  pay  in  a  ter- 
ritory dominated  by  the  ideas  of  Puritanism.  We  have  lost  much 
in  the  North,  indeed,  because  the  Puritan  was  so  far  separated 
from  the  Cavalier;  and  in  the  South  we  have  lost  much  because 
the  Cavalier  was  so  far  separated  from  the  Puritan.  But  their 
conceptions  of  government  were  here.  Here  they  battled,  con- 
tending, at  first  not  one  against  the  other,  but  together  against 
a  common  foe,  when  Washington,  the  child  of  the  Cavalier,  un- 
sheathed his  sword  under  the  elm  at  Cambridge  and  in  the  land 
of  the  Puritan.  Never,  not  even  then,  had  these  ideas  met  in 
such  relationship  that  their  power  could  be  tested.  Each  waited 
the  contest,  until  slavery  stretched  its  black  hand  out  for  our 
American  territories.  Never  until  the  awful  fact  of  Civil  War 
came,  out  of  the  eloquence  of  Webster  and  Hayne,  and  out  of 
the  willing  heroism  of  the  American  people  to  meet  a  dire  neces- 
sity; never  until  the  atonement  had  to  be  made  for  all  the  years 
of  wrong,  did  these  ideas  confront  one  another  in  all  their 
strength.  The  glory  that  we  ascribe  to  our  God  to-night,  the 
gratitude  that  we  give  to  Heaven,  in  my  judgment,  reaches  its 
highest  point  of  praise,  when  we  thank  our  God  that,  in  Abra- 
ham Lincoln,  the  South  and  the  North  met  each  other.  In  this  man 
there  were  the  Puritan  and  the  Cavalier;  he  was  a  man  of  the 
South  with  the  ideals  of  the  North.  This  mighty  heart  felt  the 
contending  armies  within  its  own  throb  of  pain  which  is  usually 
the  pain  of  progress. 

The  coming  ages  will  consider  what  is  meant — such  a  mighty 
interchange  of  personalities  and  ideals  in  him !  It  was  manifestly 
important  that  he  should  be  a  man  of  the  South.  His  sympathies 
as  a  man,  his  genial  soul  so  like  the  climate,  so  like  the  loveliness 


ADDEESS  OF  REV.  DR.  FRANK  W.  GTJNSAULUS,  D.D.  57 

of  the  home  of  the  South,  his  whole  nature  touched,  vivified, 
warmed,  fructified  by  the  infiuence  of  the  South,  in  a  thousand 
ways — these  play  within  the  glory  of  Abraham  Lincoln.  Heaven 
be  thanked  for  this,  above  all,  that  in  spite  of  the  sting  and  the 
slander  of  the  long  Civil  War,  there  never  was  a  serious  claim 
that  he  did  not  love  the  South.  His  clemency  and  justice  with 
mercy  was  his  tribute  to  his  sympathy  to  the  South. 

This  is  the  Republicanism  that  we  need,  in  all  the  crises  of 
our  national  life;  for  here  was  a  man  who  gathered  into  a  heart 
that  broke  with  agony,  these  contending  currents,  which  lifted 
Cromwell  and  Hampden  and  Rupert  and  Charles  the  First  into 
eminence  and  tragedy.  Into  one  heart  all  these  came;  into  one 
brain  these  were  found  entering,  slowly,  until  at  length,  at  last, 
the  war  being  over,  he  was  incarnating  both  North  and  South. 
There  is  no  other  figure  in  history,  so  far  as  the  record  of  civil 
wars  is  made,  that  indicates  in  the  slightest  degree,  a  comparison 
with  this  man  in  his  ability  to  unite,  in  spite  of  their  war,  dis- 
severed sections  and  contesting  ideas.  The  manhood  that  Abra- 
ham Lincoln  will  inspire  will  always  have  the  rigor  and  vigor 
of  the  Puritan  and  the  aspiration  and  grace  of  the  Cavalier. 

Finally,  my  friends,  in  our  history  which  is  still  to  be  written, 
we  shall  find  nothing  so  attractive  as  the  ability  which  grew  out 
of  all  these  events,  to  engage  or  guide  or  lead  differing  men, 
variant  mental  moods  and  apparently  antagonistic  personalities. 
It  was  into  Lincoln  that  there  came  both  the  Cavalier  and  the 
Puritan;  and  it  was  because  into  Lincoln's  hour  of  writing  the 
second  inaugural  there  came  and  were  entertained  in  his  brain 
Webster  with  his  reply  to  Hayne;  Clay,  with  his  speech  of  1850; 
Jackson  with  his  decisive  word  and  vote  against  nullification, — 
it  was  because  into  that  comprehensive  mind  these  men  could 
come  and  move  easily,  that  the  fate  of  the  Republic  was  so  com- 


58  THE   REPUBLICAN   CLTTB 

prehensive  in  its  beneficence.  The  catholicity  of  the  man,  the 
large  hospitality  of  his  soul, — these,  and  the  training  of  our 
leader  which  invited  the  society  of  these  illustrious  souls  from  the 
history  of  the  past  and  the  experience  of  the  present  of  which 
he  was  master,  made  it  possible  when  he  came  to  deal  with  the 
future  which  his  young  manhood  saw  before  him,  for  him  to  in- 
clude in  every  public  action  to  manage  and  to  direct  almost  a 
multitude  of  men  who  could  agree  on  nothing  save  loyalty  to 
him.  Apparently  antagonistic  minds  came  into  the  kindly  grip 
and  obeyed  the  ardor  and  the  conscience  of  this  mighty  man. 

I  think  of  your  Seward  with  his  culture  and  his  heroic  pioneer 
work  as  an  anti-slavery  man,  manifesting  an  ability  to  write  a 
State-paper  so  great  as  that  which  crossed  the  sea,  manifesting 
also  a  greatness  under  his  leader  of  such  a  sort  that  this  same 
document  did  not  cross  the  sea  until  Abraham  Lincoln  had  made 
such  changes  as  saved  us  from  war  with  England.  I  think  of 
Stanton,  imperious,  irascible,  singularly  able,  forthright  as  a 
patriot,  a  man  of  high  traditions;  of  Chase,  with  his  Olympian 
forehead  and  his  boundless  ambition,  minister  of  finance,  master 
of  jurisprudence,  of  all  that  Cabinet  formed  of  such  sinew  and 
nerve,  and  think  also  of  this  plain  but  lofty  man  gathering  them 
all  into  his  hands.  What  genius,  also,  to  discover  and  sustain, 
when  he  resolved  that  he  would  carry  forward  the  impulse  of 
Bepublicanism  by  putting  a  sword  into  the  hand  of  one  of  the 
most  renowned  heroes  that  ever  lived,  your  father,  Ulysses  Simp- 
son Grant! 

Republican  leadership,  ladies  and  gentlemen,  is  the  expression 
of  that  power  in  a  man  which  enables  him  so  to  respect  the  con- 
science and  abilities  of  other  men  with  whom  he  is  associated, 
that,  like  excellent  pieces  of  artillery,  he  may  turn  these  instru- 
ments of  warfare  in  the  direction  of  a  righteous  conviction  and 


ADDRESS  OF  REV.  DR.  FRANK  W.  GUNSATJLUS,  D.D.  59 

thus  execute  the  judgment  of  Almighty  God.  Let  the  Repub- 
licanism, which  is  enough  honorable  to  follow,  be  loyal  to  the 
power  of  such  men  who  gather  the  whirlwinds  and  transform, 
them  into  a  thunderbolt  against  any  wrong  which  creates 
a  new  crisis  of  national  life  and  progress.  There  was  Wendell 
Phillips,  of  whom  the  South  said  he  was  "an  infernal  machine 
set  to  music;"  the  orator  of  all  orators,  but  he  was  also  impatient 
and  hostile,  until  Lincoln  brought  him  under  the  spell  of  a 
patience  more  powerful  than  his  words  of  flame.  Lincoln-like, 
our  Republicanism  must  be  so  mighty  a  stream  that  whatever 
honest  idealism  may  do  shall  be  swept  in  its  current  and  hurry 
on  the  advance  to  the  sea.  Lincoln  could  do  much  that  he  did, 
because  Phillips  had  followed  Edward  Everett  from  platform  to 
platform  at  the  time  when  Mr.  Everett  and  Robert  C.  Winthrop 
were  trying  to  re-unite  the  States,  by  adding  stones  together  to 
make  a  monument  to  George  Washington,  who  hated  slavery. 
As  I  say,  he  followed  Everett  with  his  portrait  of  Washington; 
but  Phillips  painted  another  portrait,  and  this  was  one  of  a  man 
as  black  as  midnight,  painted  to  make  the  nation  see  that  a  white 
soul  under  a  black  skin  means  yet  a  man.  When  the  orator  went 
out  to  see  the  unfinished  monument  at  the  Capitol  City — for  God 
had  ordained  that  it  should  be  impossible  to  complete  a  monu- 
ment to  George  Washington  that  by  any  subterfuge  whatever 
should  perpetuate  the  slavery  which  he  tried  to  expel  from  the 
American  continent,  he  said  to  Mr.  Lincoln's  friend,  ''You  tell 
Mr.  Lincoln  that  even  yet  I  am  saying  that  men  may  pile  their 
monument  to  the  clouds  and  they  may  build  it  of  marble  or  of 
granite;  but  if  it  is  put  together  by  injustice,  the  pulse  of  the 
weakest  girl  will  in  time  beat  it  down."  My  own  father  told 
this  to  Mr.  Lincoln,  and  the  President  thanked  God  for  the  orator. 
There  were  tears  upon  the  haggard  cheek,  and  they  were  tears 


60  *    THE  EEPUBLICAN  CLUB 

that  had  not  dried,  in  the  tremendous  passion  of  the  hour  when 
Charles  Sumner  entered  the  room  of  the  President.  Only  the  day 
before,  Mr.  Beecher,  with  his  overflowing  heart  and  his  manly 
patriotism,  had  been  there.  "What  shall  I  do  with  all  these 
good  men?"  said  he,  "God  has  created  these  men,  and  they  are 
great  men.  We  must  be  great  enough  to  work  together.'*  I 
call  that  true  Republicanism.  The  reverence  which  Abraham 
Lincoln  had  for  true-hearted  men  had  its  roots  in  his  appreciation 
of  the  fact  that  goodness  is  greater  than  greatness.  He  saw  that 
statesmanship  is  the  art  of  finding  in  what  direction  Almighty 
God  with  all  good  men  are  going  and  getting  things  out  of  God's 
way  which,  by  God's  grace,  is  also  the  way  of  excellent  humanity. 
Everybody  may  help,  not  because  he  is  great  enough,  but  because 
he  is  good  enough.  So  clearly  did  he  understand  this,  that  when 
Sumner  came  with  a  little  flag  made  for  Abraham  Lincoln  and 
sent  to  him  by  a  Massachusetts  girl,  and  out  of  her  poverty,  and 
the  scholarly  Senator  said  what  is  yet  true,  that  "the  red  is  for 
valor,  the  white  is  for  purity,  the  blue  is  for  justice,"  Abraham 
Lincoln  said,  "We  will  make  all  these  things  true ;  all  these  things 
shall  be  true."  I  seem  to  see  him  standing  now,  looking  back 
upon  the  problem  and  its  glorious  solution.  The  voice  of  history 
is  saying  all  these  things  are  true;  the  flag  is  safe;  and  the  Re- 
public shall  endure. 


GEORGE  von  LENGERKE  MEYER 

TJ.  S.  Minister  and  Plenipotentiary  to  Italy,  1900-05; 
to  Russia,  1905-07;  Postmaster-General,  1907-09;  Sec- 
retary of  the  Navy,  1909. 


ADDRESS   OF 

HON.  GEORGE  von  L.  MEYER 


Mr.  Toastmaster  and  ladies  and  gentlemen:  It  is  perhaps  not 
generally  known  that  Lincoln's  military  activities  during  the 
Civil  War  included  naval  operations  as  well  as  military  opera- 
tions on  land.  His  orders  and  instructions  to  commanders  of  joint 
expeditions  required  the  most  perfect  co-operation.  He  did  more 
than  merely  approve  plans  submitted  to  him;  he  originated  many 
of  them.  His  mind  readily  solved  most  of  the  war  problems  sub- 
mitted to  him,  though  the  men  and  means  were  not  always  avail- 
able for  success. 

Lincoln  had  the  greatest  confidence  in  the  integrity  of  the 
Hon.  Gideon  Welles,  his  Secretary  of  the  Navy,  and  in  the  ef- 
ficiency and  ability  of  Captain  Gustavus  Vasa  Fox,  the  Assistant 
Secretary  of  the  Navy;  through  the  latter  he  maintained  close 
relations  with  all  naval  operations. 

Throughout  the  war  Lincoln's  custom  was  to  spend  a  portion 
of  every  evening  with  Captain  Fox  in  the  telegraph  office  at  the 
Navy  Department,  and  through  his  relations  with  him  and  the 
Secrtary  of  the  Navy,  he  was  in  close  touch  with  every  detail 
of  naval  operations  of  the  Civil  War,  including  all  independent 
and  co-operative  movements,  and  he  clearly  defined  the  relations 
between  the  naval  and  military  services  as  strictly  co-operative, 
rather  than  subordinating  one  to  the  other. 

Lincoln  is  reported  as  saying;  "The  Mississippi  is  the  backbone 


64  THE  EEPUBLICAN   CLTTB 

of  the  rebellion;  it  is  the  key  to  the  whole  situation;  while  the 
Confederates  hold  it  they  can  obtain  supplies  of  all  kinds,  and 
it  is  a  barrier  against  our  forces." 

Lincoln's  personal  interest  in  Farragut's  campaign  was  so  great 
that  when  the  Admiral  hesitated  about  ascending  with  his  ocean- 
going vessels  from  New  Orleans  to  Vicksburg,  Lincoln  sent  him, 
through  the  Navy  Department,  imperative  orders  to  proceed  up 
the  Mississippi  to  meet  the  fleet  of  the  Mississippi  River  flotilla 
from  above. 

His  admirable  judgment  is  evident  in  all  his  orders  regarding 
naval  affairs  during  his  entire  administration.  While  entirely 
ignorant  of  technical  and  tactical  details,  his  power  of  logically 
arranging  groups  of  facts  gave  him  a  clear  insight,  and  better 
still,  real  foresight  in  all  larger  strategical  questions. 

(The  remainder  of  Secretary  Meyer's  address  had  reference  to 
the  Navy.) 


THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

Governor  of  New  York;    Vice-President  and  after- 
wards President  of  the  United  States. 


ADDRESS    OF 

EX-PRESIDENT 

THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 


Mr.  President,  and  my  fellow  members  and  friends :  I  am  deeply 
touched  by  your  meeting  and  thank  you  for  it.  If  there  could 
have  been  anything  wanting  on  this  occasion  when  I  am  to  meet 
you,  my  fellow  citizens  of  the  city  where  I  was  born,  it  was  sup- 
plied by  having  present  and  speaking,  as  you  have  just  heard  him 
speak,  a  man  from  the  State  where  my  mother  and  my  mother's 
people  were  born;  for  I  am  half  a  Georgian,  Judge,  and  it  made 
me  feel  very  proud  to  sit  here  and  listen  before  you  New  Yorkers 
to  the  Georgian  who  teaches  us  that  Georgian  and  New  Yorker 
alike  are  Americans  first  and  foremost. 

I  want  to  speak  a  word  or  two  on  a  couple  of  topics  not  sug- 
gested by  my  theme  before  I  touch  on  that.  I  want  to  say  how 
glad  I  am  to  hear  the  way  in  which  the  club,  the  members  of 
the  club  here  to-night,  have  responded  to  the  two  appeals  made 
to  them  to  uphold  the  hands  of  President  Taft,  both,  in  his  effort 
to  secure  the  fortification  of  the  Panama  Canal. 

And  in  addition  to  what  has  been  said  about  reciprocity  with 
Canada  I  would  like  to  make  this  point:  It  should  always  be  a 
cardinal  point  in  our  foreign  policy  to  establish  the  closest  and 
most  friendly  relations,  of  equal  respect  and  advantage,  with  our 
great  neighbor  on  the  north.    And  I  hail  the  reciprocity  arrange- 


THE   REPUBLICAN   CLUB 


ment  because  it  represents  an  effort  to  bring  about  a  closer,  a 
more  intimate,  a  more  friendly  relationship  of  mutual  advantage 
on  equal  terms  between  Canada  and  the  United  States. 

It  was  a  pleasure  to  hear  the  able  Secretary  of  the  Navy,  who 
has  done  so  much  for  the  navy,  allude  to  the  voyage  of  the  battle 
fleet.  When  I  was  going  through  Europe  last  spring,  it  interested 
me  to  find  that  the  two  things  done  by  America  during  the  last 
ten  years  that  had  most  vividly  impressed  not  only  the  imagina- 
tion of  the  people,  but  the  minds  of  the  great  statesmen  and  sov- 
ereigns of  Europe,  were  the  voyage  of  the  battle  fleet  and  the 
building  of  the  Panama  Canal ;  because,  mind  you,  gentlemen,  for- 
eigners do  not  care  a  rap  what  we  say  about  our  own  greatness; 
they  are  utterly  unaffected  by  any  Fourth  of  July  oration;  but 
-they  care  a  gerat  deal  for  proof  that  we  are  able  by  deed  to 
make  good  our  words.  Until  we  sent  the  fleet  of  battleships 
around  the  world  foreign  nations  felt  sure  we  could  not  do  it, 
because  they  did  not  think  they  could;  and  it  opened  the  eyes 
of  all  of  them  to  what  our  fleet  was.  I  take  a  certain  half  hu- 
morous pleasure  in  looking  back  to  the  comments  made  by  the 
press  of  my  native  city  upon  both  those  enterprises  when  I  in- 
itiated them.  Do  you  remember  the  double-leaded  editorials,  that 
"the  fleet  shall  not  leave  the  Eastern  coast" ;  but  it  did  leave  the 
Eastern  coast.  And  I  remember  one  prominent  United  States 
Senator,  in  an  interview,  saying  that  there  was  not  enough  money 
to  take  the  fleet  around  the  world,  and  that  it  should  not  go,  as 
no  money  would  be  given.  As  I  then  explained,  there  was 
enough  money  to  take  the  fleet  out  to  the  Pacific,  and  it  was 
going  to  the  Pacific ;  then  if  the  Senator  in  question  did  not  wish 
it  to  return,  why  it  would  stay  in  the  Pacific.  The  fleet  went, 
and  the  money  came,  and  the  fleet  returned.  Now,  the  Judge 
has  told  you  of  the  protest  made  by  those  very  worthy  ladies  of 


ADDRESS  OF  EX-PRESIDENT  ROOSEVELT 


both  sexes — I  am  using  the  most  respectful  terms  that  are  com- 
patible with  truthfulness — against  the  fortification  of  the  Canal. 
The  Judge  also  read  to  you  the  recently  published  documents 
containing  the  statements  of  the  British  official  representatives, 
their  Cabinet  Minister  and  their  Ambassador,  as  to  our  right  to 
fortify  the  Canal.  I  can  add  to  that  my  own  personal  experience. 
I  had  as  Governor  made  a  public  statement  in  opposition  to  the 
treaty  as  drawn  up  in  1900,  stating  that  I  trusted  it  would  not 
be  adopted,  because  it  invited  other  powers  to  join  with  us  in 
guaranteeing  the  neutrality  of  the  canal,  and  because  it  pro- 
hibited our  fortifying  the  canal.  I  became  President,  by  the 
lamentable  chance  of  the  assassin's  bullet.  Just  prior  to  the 
signing  of  the  second  treaty,  the  treaty  under  which  we  are  now 
acting,  Mr.  Hay  came  to  me  at  once,  almost  as  soon  as  I  had 
reached  Washington,  certainly  within  a  few  weeks,  and  said  that 
he  wanted  to  talk  with  me  over  the  proposed  Panama  treaty  with 
Great  Britain.  I  said,  Mr.  Secretary,  does  it  meet  the  two  re- 
quirements that  I  said  I  laid  down?  He  answered  yes,  and  he 
showed  me  the  letters  from  Lord  Lansdowne  and  Lord  Paunce- 
fote,  explicitly  recognizing  our  right  to  fortify  the  canal.  He 
showed  me  the  correspondence  from  which  the  Judge  has  read, 
and  immediately  afterwards  I  received  Lord  Pouncefote  and  told 
him  how  glad  I  was  that  the  treaty  had  been  arranged  as  it  was, 
because  if  there  had  been  any  question  of  the  right  of  the  United 
States  to  fortify  the  canal  I  would  never  have  consented  to  send 
the  treaty  to  the  Senate.  He  said  he  understood  this  perfectly, 
and  that  his  government  had  explicitly  stated  that  the  treaty  in 
no  way  debarred  the  United  States  from  fortifying  the  canal  if 
it  so  desired.  Then  came  the  treaty  with  Panama,  in  which  we 
outright  received  the  right  to  fortify;  it  gave  me  great  pleasure 
to  hear  the  Judge  speak  of  our  treaty  with  Panama. 


70  THE   REPUBLICAN   CLUB 

By  the  way,  if  there  ever  was  any  act  of  my  administration  for 
which  I  felt  there  was  absolute  ethical  justification,  it  was  the 
handling  of  that  Panama  situation.  To  let  yourself  be  held  up 
by  bandits  does  not  show  good  nature.  It  shows  timidity.  I  did 
not  intend  that  any  set  of  bandits  should  hold  up  Uncle  Sam. 
But  I  did  intend  that  Uncle  Sam  should  behave  with  absolute 
justice,  and  with  more  than  justice,  with  generosity  toward  the 
weaker  neighbor  with  which  he  dealt ;  and  although  the  Republic 
of  Panama  could  exist  only  by  virtue  of  the  guarantee  of  neutral- 
ity that  we  gave,  yet  we  scrupulously  treated  Panama  just  as  we 
would  have  treated  the  most  powerful  country  on  the  face  of  the 
earth. 

If  there  is  a  great  work  that  must  be  done,  a  nation  can  only 
take  one  of  two  positions:  that  it  will  do  it,  or  that  it  won't 
interfere  with  anyone  else  doing  it.  Now,  we  took  the  position 
that  we  would  not  have  anyone  but  ourselves  dig  the  Panama 
Canal.  Good;  I  was  glad  we  took  it,  but  when  we  took  that 
position  we  had  to  dig  it  ourselves.  And  my  friends,  I  ask  you 
to  think  of  what  the  feeling  of  this  country  would  be  if  we 
yielded  to  the  demands  of  maudlin  sentimentality  and  declined 
to  fortify  that  canal,  and  some  power  that  was  about  to  go  to 
war  with  us — for  it  might  act  first — or  was  at  war  with  us, 
seized  the  canal.  Do  you  suppose  that  a  power  engaged  in  a  life 
and  death  struggle  with  us  would  hesitate  to  act  in  any  way 
that  would  hurt  us  most?  Of  course  not.  Mind  you,  no  power 
except  England  and  Panama  is  bound  to  respect  the  neutrality 
of  the  canal.  If  we  ever  get  engaged  in  war,  we  would  need  be 
thrice  foolish  if  we  did  not  understand  that  we  have  to  be  pre- 
pared to  defend  ourselves  from  an  attack  on  whatever  was  vital 
to  our  interests.  Fortunately  for  us  as  a  nation,  the  foolish  peo- 
ple who  protest  against  the  fortification  of  the  Panama  Canal  will 


ADDRESS  OF  EX-PRESIDENT  ROOSEVELT  71 

fail  in  their  effort,  and  the  canal  will  be  fortified;  for  if  it  were 
not,  and  this  country  were  ever  at  war,  our  children's  children 
would  hold  in  execration  and  as  infamous  forever,  the  memory 
of  those  men,  and  especially  those  public  men,  who  prevented  the 
United  States  from  guaranteeing  its  honor  and  its  interest  by 
fortifying  the  Panama  Canal. 

To-night  we  are  gathered  to  do  honor  to  the  memory  of  Abra- 
ham Lincoln,  and  to  me  has  been  assigned  the  duty  of  speaking 
of  Lincoln  and  progressive  democracy.  I  speak  of  progressive 
democracy  in  its  genuine  sense;  for  the  Republican  party  was 
founded  as  the  genuine  progressively  democratic  party  of  this 
country. 

The  founders  of  our  Government,  the  men  who  made  the  Con- 
stitution and  who  signed  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  tended 
to  divide  into  two  groups,  those  under  Hamilton,  who  believed 
in  a  strong  and  efiicient  government,  but  who  distrusted  the  peo- 
ple; and  those  under  Jefferson,  who  did  not  believe  in  a  strong 
or  efficient  government,  but  who  in  a  certain  sense  did  trust  the 
people — although  it  was  really  distrust  of  them  to  keep  the  gov- 
ernment weak.  And  therefore  for  decades  we  oscillated  between 
the  two  tendencies,  and  could  not  develop  the  genuine  strength 
that  a  democracy  should  have  until  Abraham  Lincoln  arose,  until 
he  and  the  men  with  him  founded  the  Republican  party  on  the 
union  of  the  two  ideas  of  combining  efficient  governmental  force 
with  genuine  and  whole-hearted  trust  in  the  people. 

In  the  fine  oration  of  Dr.  Gunsaulus,  to  which  we  have  listened 
to-night  he  has  pointed  out  something  that  I  wish  not  only  every 
man  here,  but  all  men  in  similar  gatherings  throughout  this 
Union,  would  remember.  He  has  pointed  out  the  fact  that  in 
every  great  crisis  the  genuine  representative  of  the  men  who  made 
the  progressive  movement  in  the  last  great  crisis,  is  the  man 


72  THE  REPUBLICAN   CLUB 

who  is  true  to  the  spirit  of  that  movement,  and  who  is  ready 
when  necessary  to  ignore  its  letter  in  favor  of  its  spirit. 

Let  me  just  work  out  that  idea  with  you  for  a  moment.  If 
the  Baron  who  signed  Magna  Charta  had  refused  to  sign  it  and 
had  confined  himself  to  praising  the  deeds  of  King  Alfred,  he 
would  not  have  been  a  progressive  baron.  What  he  had  to  do 
was  to  apply  to  his  own  days  the  spirit  that  actuated  King  Al- 
fred in  his  days.  The  men  who  signed  the  Declaration  of  Inde- 
pendence were  the  heirs  of  those  who  made  Magna  Charta;  but 
if  they  had  confined  themselves  to  re-establishing  the  principles 
of  Magna  Charta,  we  would  not  be  an  independent  nation  to-day. 
They  were  the  heirs  of  the  men  of  Magna  Charta  in  spirit,  and 
therefore  they  did  not  confine  themselves  to  praise  of  Magna 
Charta,  and  refused  to  go  beyond  it.  They  applied  the  principles 
which  had  stood  for  progress  during  the  early  thirteenth  century 
to  the  needs  of  the  late  eighteenth  century,  and  therefore  they 
in  their  turn  made  progress.  To  stand  still  and  refuse  to  go 
beyond  the  point  reached  by  the  thirteenth  centUry  men  would 
have  meant  Bourbonism  in  the  nineteenth  century. 

Abraham  Lincoln  was  the  real  heir  of  George  Washington. 
The  men  of  Lincoln's  generation  were  true  heirs  of  the  men  of 
the  Revolution,  of  the  men  who  made  and  adopted  the  Constitu- 
tion just  because  they  applied  the  old  principles  according  to  the 
new  methods  necessary  in  order  adequately  to  meet  the  new  and 
changed  conditions.  They  showed  themselves  to  be  the  heirs  of 
the  great  men  of  the  past,  because  they  met  the  problems  of  the 
present,  not  by  refusing  to  use  other  methods  than  those  that  had 
solved  the  problems  of  the  past,  but  by  using  the  new  methods 
necessary  in  order  that  the  old  principles  could  be  applied  to  the 
new  needs. 
Abraham  Lincoln  and  his  associates  founded  the  Eepublican 


ADDRESS  OF  EX-PRESIDENT  ROOSEVELT  73 

party  as  a  progressive  party,  as  a  party  of  dynamics,  not  a  party 
of  statics.  It  was  not  formed  to  keep  unchanged  the  old  meth- 
ods which  had  served  so  well  two  generations  before,  in  the  face  of 
new  conditions  which  those  old  methods  were  unfit  to  meet.  That 
attitude  was  the  attitude  taken  by  the  cotton  Whigs — excellent 
gentlemen,  good,  conservative,  high  minded  gentlemen  who  did 
not  trust  the  people,  and  were  afraid  of  meeting  the  new  issues. 
Dr.  Gunsaulus  has  shown  how  that  brilliant,  although  hopelessly 
erratic  friend  of  freedom,  Wendell  Phillips,  followed  Mr.  Everett 
around  when  Mr.  Everett  was  engaged  in  the  vain  effort  to  show 
that  Lincoln  was  a  firebrand  and  a  danger,  and  that  the  new 
problems  before  the  American  people  did  not  need  any  new  meth- 
ods to  solve  them.  The  men  of  Mr.  Everett's  type  to-day  revere 
Lincoln  because  he  is  dead,  but  ©bject  to  anyone  who  is  alive  who 
follows  Lincoln's  lead.  We  to-day  can  show  our  loyalty  to  Abra- 
ham Lincoln  and  his  fellows;  can  show  that  that  loyalty  is  not 
merely  a  loyalty  of  the  lips,  but  a  loyalty  of  the  heart,  by  ap- 
plying their  principles  to  the  living  issues  of  the  present ;  not  by 
confining  ourselves  to  praising  them  for  the  way  they  applied 
those  principles  to  issues  that  are  dead. 

Now,  another  thing:  I  have  used  the  word  ^'progressive."  I 
regard  it  as  absolutely  essential  that  the  Republican  party  should 
be  the  party  of  progress,  should  be  the  progressive  party.  But 
I  do  not  believe,  and  you  do  not  believe,  in  making  terminology 
into  a  fetich.  Abraham  Lincoln  was  progressive  compared  to 
Buchanan  and  Fillmore;  compared  to  Wendell  Phillips  and  John 
Brown  he  was  conservative;  and  he  was  right  in  both  positions. 
In  other  words,  Abraham  Lincoln  recognized  the  fact  that  in 
working  out  a  great  and  lasting  reform  there  is  need  of  both 
trace  work  and  breeching  work.  You  must  drag  the  wagon 
along  when  it  needs  dragging,  and  if  it  starts  to  go  down  hill 


74  THE  REPUBLICAN   CLUB 

too  fast  you  have  got  to  hold  it  back.  Let  me  illustrate  just  what 
I  mean  by  speaking  of  a  matter  in  Congress  as  to  which  there 
seems  to  have  been  wide  divergence  among  Republicans,  the  pro- 
posed constitutional  amendment  providing  for  the  election  of 
Senators  by  popular  vote. 

Now,  I  am  one  of  those  who  emphatically  believe  in  the  elec- 
tion of  Senators  by  popular  vote.  At  present,  they  are  trying  the 
other  system,  with  singularly  ill  success  at  Albany.  By  popular 
vote,  at  least  we  would  know  whether  we  could  or  could  not 
elect  anyone. 

Our  ultra-conservative  friends  speak  with  bated  breath,  with 
horror,  over  the  proposed  change.  I  ask  their  attention  and  yours 
to  the  fact  that  the  proposal  to  change  the  election  of  Senators 
into  direct  election  by  the  people,  is  only  a  proposal  to  make,  as 
regards  Senators,  the  change  we  have  already  made  as  regards 
President.  The  founders  of  the  Constitution  had  not  advanced 
as  far  as  Abraham  Lincoln  had.  That  is  not  to  their  discredit  in 
the  least.  As  Dr.  Gunsaulus  pointed  out,  the  men  who  made 
Magna  Charta  would  not  have  known  what  to  make  of  the  Dec- 
laration of  Independence,  or  of  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States;  too  many  centuries  lay  ahead  of  them.  What  the  men 
of  Runnymede  did  was  to  meet  in  a  spirit  of  sane  progressiveness 
the  needs  of  their  own  day;  they  met  them  in  the  right  spirit; 
and  it  was  for  the  men  of  a  subsequent  day  to  show  the  same 
spirit,  and  meet  different  needs.  Now,  the  men  who  founded 
our  government,  who  founded  the  Constitution,  felt  that  it  would 
not  be  safe  to  allow  the  people  directly  to  elect  either  the  Presi- 
dent or  the  Senators;  remember,  I  am  not  blaming  them  in  the 
least;  they  were  wise  to  go  ahead  slowly;  but  we  would  be  very 
foolish  not  in  our  turn  to  keep  on  going  ahead.  They  felt  that 
the  people  ought  to  be  contented  with  electing  Congressmen,  and 


ADDRESS  OF  EX-PRESIDENT  ROOSEVELT  75 

for  two  or  three  elections  the  electoral  college  functioned  in  ac- 
cordance with  that  theory,  until  a  very  great  danger  arose  in 
connection  with  the  first  election  of  Mr.  Jefferson,  when  Aaron 
Burr,  whom  nobody  had  thought  of  for  President,  came  within 
one  electoral  vote  of  being  made  President.  We  have  changed 
that  system  so  completely  that  we  now  have  what  is,  in  actual 
practice,  a  direct  election  for  President.  The  members  of  the 
electoral  college  no  longer  liave  any  function  except  registering 
the  popular  will. 

Now  the  proposal  to  elect  the  Senators  by  popular  vote  is  noth- 
ing whatever  but  a  proposal  to  continue  the  same  movement  as 
regards  the  Senators  that  the  country  has  put  through  as  regards 
the  President;  and  to  me  it  seems  an  idle  absurdity  to  talk  of  its 
being  a  danger  to  give  to  the  people  the  same  chance  to  vote 
directly  for  one  house  of  the  Legislature  that  they  had  from  the 
beginning  in  voting  for  the  other  house  of  the  Legislature,  and 
that  they  have  insisted  upon  assuming  in  voting  for  President. 
But  unfortunately,  in  their  zeal  for  that  principle,  some  advo- 
cates of  it  in  Washington  have,  in  order  to  get  votes  for  it, 
coupled  with  it  a  provision  that,  so  far  from  being  progressive, 
is  in  a  high  degree,  retrogressive.  I  mean  the  provision  depriv- 
ing the  United  States  of  part  of  its  present  authority  over  the 
election  of  Senators.  A  Senator  is  elected  by  a  State;  but  he 
takes  his  oath  of  allegiance  not  to  that  State,  but  to  all  the 
United  States.  The  Senator  from  Georgia,  when  he  takes  his 
oath,  becomes  my  representative,  Judge,  exactly  as  he  is  yours. 
The  Senator  from  New  York  when  he  takes  his  oath  becomes 
your  representative,  Doctor,  just  as  much  as  he  is  mine.  The 
Senators  are  officers  of  the  United  States  Government,  and  the 
whole  people  of  the  United  States  are  concerned  in  their  election, 
and  I  hold  that  it  is  an  unpardonable  act  of  retrog^^ession  to 


76  THE  EEPTJBLICAN   CLUB 

diminish  by  a  fingerweight  the  power  of  the  United  States  in 
passing  upon  and  controlling  the  election  of  Senators  of  the 
United  States. 

Now,  friends,  I  want  to  take  another  illustration.  I  am  not 
going  to  keep  you  very  long.  You  are  very  patient.  I  want  to 
take  another  illustration.  In  1777  the  founders  of  the  Constitu- 
tion met  to  adopt  the  Constitution.  They  met — as  has  been  ad- 
mirably pointed  out  in  certain  masterly  decisions  by  Judge  Speer 
— they  met  primarily  because  it  had  been  found,  by  actual  ex- 
perience, that  to  allow  the  commerce  between  the  States  and 
among  the  States  to  be  controlled  by  the  whim  of  each  State 
resulted  in  absolute  chaos.  The  Constitution  conferred  absolutely 
unlimited  and  absolutely  exclusive  powers  upon  the  national  gov- 
ernment to  control  all  inter-state  commerce.  The  power  could 
not  be  more  explicitly  given.  I  do  not  ask  for  a  particle  of  in- 
crease of  this  power  by  the  national  government.  All  I  ask  is 
that  it  exercise  efficiently  that  power  by  creating  the  instruments 
necessary  to  meet  the  totally  changed  conditions  of  to-day. 

Our  people  as  a  whole  are  resolutely  bent  that  the  power  shall 
be  exercised.  If  the  United  States  as  a  whole  does  not  exercise 
it,  the  States  will  begin  to  try  to  exercise  it  themselves.  If  they 
do  so,  then  sooner  or  later,  and  absolutely  inevitably,  the  Supreme 
Court  will  decide  that  no  State  can  directly  or  indirectly  control 
inter-state  commerce  within  its  boundaries.  The  Supreme  Court 
will  decide,  because  it  will  have  to  decide,  under  the  plainest 
doctrines  of  the  Constitution,  that  no  State  can  accomplish  this 
by  subterfuge  or  by  indirection  any  more  than  it  can  do  it  by 
direction.  The  United  States  Government  must  alone  exercise 
this  power. 

People  ask  me  why  we  should  exercise  control  over  big  cor- 
porations and  not  over  small  corporations?     I  think  the  answer 


ADDRESS  OF  EX-PRESIDENT  ROOSEVELT  77 

is  perfectly  easy.  All  of  us  here  deal  in  our  private  capacities 
with  a  good  many  different  men,  with  the  grocer,  the  carpenter, 
the  blacksmith,  the  butcher  and  a  number  of  other  men;  and  we 
are  able  to  get  along  perfectly  well  with  them  because  they  are 
just  about  our  size.  As  regards  our  relations  with  them  sub- 
stantially the  old  methods  and  old  principles  of  a  century  or  two 
centuries  ago  still  obtain.  If  one  of  us  is  dealing  with  a  grocer 
and  the  grocer  does  not  give  us  good  stuff  for  our  money,  we 
change  the  grocer;  and  if  we  do  not  pay  the  grocer,  the  grocer 
won't  sell  us  anything. 

This  is  all  right,  because  the  grocer  has  a  great  many  cus- 
tomers, and  there  are  a  good  many  grocers;  you  can  change  from 
one  to  the  other,  and  he  can  avoid  the  customers  that  do  not  pay 
their  bills.  But  suppose  the  grocer  becomes  a  captain  of  in- 
dustry and  extends  his  business  so  that,  whatever  it  is,  coal,  oil, 
railroads,  sugar,  whatever  it  is,  it  is  a  business  that  extends  over 
a  great  many  different  States.  Then  he  inevitably  joins  with 
others  and  a  great  corporation  is  formed,  a  great  artificial  indi- 
vidual ;  and  we  can  none  of  us  deal  adequately  with  that  individ- 
ual because  we  are  no  longer  dealing  with  somebody  of  our  own 
size;  we  are  dealing  with  somebody  immensely  larger  than  our- 
selves. We  can  change  the  grocer;  but  if  there  is  only  one  rail- 
way and  we  want  to  go  on  a  journey,  we  must  go  on  that 
railway;  we  cannot  walk;  and  if  we  want  to  ship  our  goods 
we  must  ship  them  by  that  railroad.  If  a  corporation  controls 
practically  all  of  a  given  commodity,  or  enough  to  determine 
the  price  of  that  commodity,  we  have  to  deal  with  that  corpora- 
tion whether  we  like  it  or  not. 

This  means  that  we  can  deal  under  the  ordinary  conditions  of 
competition  with  the  smaller  men  around  us,  with  the  men  of 
our  own  size  in  the  ordinary  relations  of  life,  but  when  we  come 


78  THE   REPUBLICAN   CLUB 

to  a  great  artificial  creation  of  the  law,  a  great  corporation, 
which  does  business  on  an  enormous  scale  in  a  great  many  States, 
there  is  no  one  of  us  big  enough  to  deal  with  it  by  himself. 
Accordingly  we  have  to  invoke  the  aid  of  the  only  entity  that  is 
big  enough  to  deal  with  it,  and  that  is  Uncle  Sam.  Uncle  Sam's 
method  of  dealing  with  the  great  corporation  should  in  principle 
be  just  precisely  like  our  method  of  dealing  with  the  individual 
grocer  or  butcher  or  baker  or  carpenter.  In  the  first  place  Uncle 
Sam  should  insist  upon  having  justice  done  to  him,  done  to  the 
people;  and,  in  the  next  place,  he  should  be  scrupulous  in  doing 
justice  in  return  to  the  corporation.  It  is  just  as  it  is  with  us  in 
private  life.  When  Uncle  Sam  deals  with  a  railway  he  ought  to 
behave  just  as  one  of  us  does  with  his  grocer  or  baker.  If  we 
cheat  the  grocer  out  of  his  money  he  cannot  go  on  with  the  busi- 
ness; and,  on  the  other  hand,  if  we  decline  to  look  at  his  bills,  it 
does  not  show  soundness  of  heart  on  our  part;  it  shows  weakness 
of  head.  Uncle  Sam  should  deal  with  a  railway,  for  instance,  just 
in  the  same  way.  He  should  be  scrupulous  so  to  treat  it  that  it 
can  have  an  ample  return,  that  the  investor  shall  have  ample  re- 
turn on  the  investment;  if  there  is  any  doubt  it  should  be  re- 
solved in  favor  of  the  investors.  But  Uncle  Sam  should  have, 
and  gentlemen,  don't  forget  that  the  American  people  are  bound 
that  he  shall  have  the  power  to  get  fair  play  in  return  and  to 
get  it  not  as  a  favor  but  as  a  right. 

And  friends,  this  movement  for  fair  play,  this  movement  for 
juster  conditions  —  conditions  which  shall  be  such  that  in  this 
country  a  man  shall  have  a  living  wage  for  his  work,  and  that 
there  shall  be  square  treatment  of  every  man  by  big  corporations 
— this  movement  should  not  become,  and  if  we  are  wise  we  will 
not  permit  it  to  become,  a  contest  of  the  have-nots  against  the 
haves.    I  should  mourn  beyond  measure  if  the  progressive  move- 


ADDEESS  OF  EX-PRESIDENT  ROOSEVELT  79 

ment  became  a  movement  led  by  violent  men  who  hoped  person- 
ally to  profit  by  it;  and  I  ask  you  here  and  the  men  like  you  to 
take  the  lead  in  that  movement  jUst  because  I  wish  to  see  it  led 
as  the  great  anti-slavery  movement  was  led,  as  the  great  move- 
ment for  the  union  of  the  country  was  led,  by  men  who  hoped 
for  no  personal  gain  from  the  success  of  their  principles,  but 
who  acted  as  they  did  only  because  they  felt  a  burning  in 
their  souls  to  respond  to  the  demands  made  for  compliance  with 
the  immutable  laws  of  righteousness. 

Friends,  I  believe  in  perfecting  every  governmental  instru- 
ment, I  believe  in  passing  every  law  that  will  make  this  more 
genuinely  a  government  of  the  people,  more  genuinely  a  govern- 
ment of  justice;  that  will  enable  us  more  and  more  surely  to 
drive  special  privilege  out  of  every  stronghold.  I  believe  in  pass- 
ing such  laws;  but  woe  to  us  as  a  people  if  we  think  that  we 
shall  be  saved  by  laws  alone.  South  of  us  there  have  been  and 
there  are  now  certain  republics  in  Central  America  and  in  north- 
ern South  America  where  they  have  had  exactly  our  constitution, 
practically  exactly  our  laws,  where  on  paper  their  system  has 
been  just  like  ours,  but  where  the  results  have  worked  out  as 
differently  from  ours  as  night  is  different  from  day,  because  the 
men  behind  the  laws  have  been  totally  different.  No  law  that 
can  be  devised  by  the  wit  of  man  will  avail  unless  the  average 
citizen  is  a  decent  man  who  believes  in  the  fundamental  and 
primary  virtues  of  courage,  of  honesty  and  of  common  sense. 
And  you  here,  you  here  like  all  the  rest  of  our  people,  have  upon 
you  a  great  burden;  you  have  more  than  the  burden  of  the  suc- 
cess of  this  nation,  great  though  that  burden  is. 

Two  things  struck  me  especially  as  I  talked  with  the  people 
of  the  different  sections  of  Europe  last  spring.  Wherever  I  went 
I  found  that  the  oppressed  man,  the  man  who  felt  that  artificial 


80  THE  REPUBLICAN   CLUB 

conditions  made  his  life  hard  for  him,  the  man  who  felt  that  he 
received  less  than  justice,  and  that  he  did  not  get  the  full  chance 
to  which  he  was  entitled,  the  chance  to  develop  his  talents  and 
to  show  the  stuff  of  which  he  was  made — I  found  that  such  a 
man  always  looked  toward  America  as  the  golden  land  of  promise, 
the  land  that  had  at  least  partially  realized  the  ideal  of  fair  and 
just  treatment  as  between  man  and  man.  . 

But,  together  with  that  feeling  I  found  another,  which  made 
me  feel  as  sad  as  the  first  made  me  feel  proud;  for  together  with 
that  feeling  went  the  feeling  of  doubt  as  to  whether  we  really 
had  in  this  country  realized  the  goal  that  we  had  set  ourselves 
to  realize.  Every  time  a  story  of  business  or  political  corrup- 
tion or  of  lawless  violence  among  us  is  sent  to  the  other  side, 
it  is  a  subject  for  sneering  mirth  on  the  part  of  every  reactionary, 
on  the  part  of  every  foe  of  popular  government;  and  it  saddens 
the  hearts  of  those  who  hope  that  we  here  in  America  shall  be 
able  to  show  that  the  Democratic  experiment  on  a  gigantic  scale 
can  succeed,  and  that  people  can  govern  themselves  and  yet  act, 
not  only  with  justice  toward  one  another,  but  with  honesty  in 
their  private  and  in  their  public  relations.  I  suppose  if  we  do 
not  act  as  we  ought  to  for  the  sake  of  ourselves  and  for  our 
children,  if  our  pride  in  our  own  future,  and  in  our  own  nation, 
is  not  sufB.cient  to  make  us  upright  and  honest  in  public  and 
private  relations,  that  it  is  useless  to  appeal  to  other  motives; 
and  yet,  oh,  my  friends  gathered  here  to-night,  I  feel  that  we  are 
bound  to  conduct  ourselves  with  honesty,  aggressive  and  fearless 
honesty,  that  we  are  bound  to  make  this  republic  a  success — not 
merely  in  the  things  of  the  body,  but  as  regards  the  things  of 
the  spirit — not  only  for  our  own  sakes,  and  for  the  sake  of  our 
children,  of  the  children  that  are  to  come  after  us,  but  because 
if  this  republic  falls,  we  shall  have  dimmed  forever  the  bright 
and  golden  hopes  of  the  watching  nations  of  mankind. 


THE    TWENTY-SIXTH 

ANNUAL   LINCOLN    DINNER 

of  the 

REPUBLICAN  CLUB 

of  the 

City  of  New  York 

At  the  Waldorf-Astoria 

FEBRUARY  12,  1912 


Addresses  of 

MR.  OTTO  T.  BANNARD 

MR.  CHARLES  0.  MAAS 

HON.  CHAUNCEY  M.  DEPEW 

PRESIDENT  TAFT 


ADDRESS    OF 

MR.  OTTO  T.  BANNA  RD 

President  of  the  Club 


Ladies  and  gentlemen:  For  twenty-six  successive  years,  The 
Republican  Club  of  the  City  of  New  York  has  gathered  together 
the  faithful,  for  the  worship  of  that  marvelous  American,  Abra- 
ham Lincoln.  It  is,  as  it  were,  our  Club  religion,  and  it  is  well 
for  us,  each  year,  to  turn  our  thoughts  to  the  story  of  his  life 
and  its  accomplishments.  We  adore  his  memory,  not  only  because 
he  was  the  saviour  of  the  Nation,  not  only  because  he  was  the 
liberator  of  the  slaves,  but  because  we  love  the  man.  It  was  his 
human  sympathy,  his  understanding,  his  innate  sincerity,  his 
charitable  patience,  and,  above  all,  his  absolute  honesty.  He  was 
known  as  '^Honest  Old  Abe,"  and  everyone  knew  it.  Toward  the 
end  of  his  first  term  as  President,  his  political  fortunes  seemed 
to  hang  in  the  balance,  and  it  is  difficult  for  us  to  realize,  now, 
nearly  half  a  century  later,  that  when  he  was  nominated  for  his 
second  term,  in  June,  1864,  at  Baltimore,  there  was  a  wave  of 
discontent  in  many  of  the  States  and  grave  doubts  were  freely 
expressed  whether  he  could  be  elected  if  he  were  nominated. 
Noisy  demands  were  made  that  his  candidacy  be  withdrawn,  and 
Lincoln  himself  was  haunted  by  dark  forebodings  of  political  de- 
feat. But  long  before  election,  the  plain  people  realized  that 
power  was  safe  in  his  hands,  and  that,  above  all,  he  was  honest, 


84  THE  REPUBLICAN  CLTTB 


and  enthusiasm  grew  until,  long  before  the  election,  the  nation 
had  made  its  decision,  and  from  the  east  and  from  the  west  could 
be  heard  that  glorious  song,  **We  are  coming.  Father  Abraham, 
three  hundred  thousand  strong";  and  they  did! 

Ladies  and  gentlemen,  we  are  grateful  to-night  for  the  pres- 
ence of  the  ladies  above  us.  They  are  at  once  our  blessing  and 
our  inspiration.  We  are  grateful  to-night  for  our  guests,  men 
of  distinction  and  importance,  generously  giving  us  an  evening 
from  their  busy  lives.  We  are  more  than  grateful  for  the  pres- 
ence to-night  of  the  head  of  our  party,  the  highest  officer  of  the 
nation,  and  on  this  twenty-sixth  annual  meeting  we  have  the 
twenty-sixth  President  of  the  United  States.  I  propose  the  toast 
to  "Honest  BiU  Taft!" 


GHAELES  0.  MASS 

Successful  New  York  lawyer  and  brilliant  orator. 
Attorney  for  the  Government  in  France  during  the 
World  War  period. 


ABDRESS   OF 

MR.  CHARLES  O.  MAAS 


Mr.  President,  fellow  members  of  the  Republican  Club,  ladies 
and  gentlemen:  In  a  wondrous  play  of  Maeterlinck  a  boy  and 
a  girl  are  taken  to  a  burial  ground  near  midnight  to  see  the 
dead  arise  from  their  graves.  In  fear  and  trembling  they  await 
the  momentous  hour.  The  clock  solemnly  strikes  twelve.  The 
children,  huddled  together,  look  about  them.  The  graves  open 
— but  instead  of  spectres  arising  therefrom,  beautiful  lilies  spring 
forth,  perfuming  the  air.  And  the  little  girl,  utterly  astounded, 
says:  "But  where  are  the  dead?"  And  the  boy,  realizing  with 
marvelous  intuition  what  he  saw,  replies:  "Why,  sweet,  there 
are  no  dead." 

Within  the  past  week  men  and  women  have  assembled  to  sing 
paeans  to  the  master  Dickens.  To  them  he  is  not  dead.  He  lives. 
And  so  we  come  together  year  after  year — not  only  you  and  I — 
but  all  of  the  people  of  this  indestructible  Union — and  with  our 
hearts  attuned  to  cathedral  chords  of  most  majestic  music,  we 
do  homage  to  Abraham  Lincoln — who  is  not  dead  but  who  lives 
and  who  shall  live  as  long  as  man  is  born  to  do  his  labor  upon 
this  footstool  of  the  Lord  on  High.  Human  clay  loses  its  identity 
and  becomes  dust;  human  achievement  is  changeless,  and,  like 
truth  itself,  is  of  the  perpetuities.  The  lesson  of  Lincoln,  so  deep- 
reaching  in  its  purity,  its  simplicity  and  its  nobility,  spells  to  us 


88  THE  EEFTJBLICAN  CLUB 

in  plainest  terms  the  very  love  taught  by  Buddha,  by  Confucius, 
by  Moses  and  by  Christ — the  love  of  humanity.  This  great 
teacher  has  become  of  the  immortals  because  in  crisis  virtue 
triumphed  over  all  things;  because,  in  the  deafening  maelstrom 
of  murderous  conflict,  in  the  maddening  forum  of  public  con- 
troversy where  poisonous  shafts  of  criticism  and  of  abuse  were 
hurled  at  him,  he  calmly  fulfilled  the  giant  task  for  which  he 
had  been  selected — and  loved  his  enemies  in  the  doing  thereof. 
"He  raised  his  hands  not  to  strike,  but  in  benediction."  Hatred, 
malice,  meanness  and  cruelty  were  as  foreign  to  his  nature  as 
obscenity  is  to  saintliness.  Generosity,  kindliness,  sympathy  and 
forgiveness  were  as  much  of  him  as  is  the  song  to  the  night- 
ingale. He  who  loves  to  read  of  him  may  go  into  the  vast  library 
that  records  his  character,  his  work,  his  humor  and  his  genius 
in  sweet  poesy,  in  noble  essays,  in  brilliant  orations  and  in  ma- 
jestic biography — and  when  all  is  read,  the  great  soul-gripping 
thought  that  remains  uppermost  in  the  mind  is:  Here  was  a  man 
who  loved  the  American  people  more  earnestly,  more  selflessly 
than  any  being  in  all  of  our  history — and  here  in  turn  was  a 
man  whom  the  people  loved  and  will  continue  to  love  in  increas- 
ing strength — if  such  a  thing  be  possible — ^more  deeply  and  more 
devotedly  than  any  leader  known  to  mankind.  The  soul  union 
between  Abraham  Lincoln  and  the  people  whom  he  championed 
was  celebrated  before  the  altar  of  God  Himself.  And  the  wonder 
of  it  all  is  that  such  was  the  genuineness,  the  self-abnegation 
of  this  being  that  the  thoughtful  men  of  the  South  admired  and 
respected  him  despite  the  blinding  passions  engendered  by  the 
conflict. 

Do  you  remember  the  story  written  by  Mary  Andrews?  Lin- 
coln had  left  the  White  House  for  a  walk.  It  was  the  day  after 
the  Gettysburg  speech — an  oration  so  titanic  that  it  awed  its 


ADDRESS  OF  ME.  CHAKLES  0.  MAAS  89 

hearers  into  deep  silence  instead  of  stirring  them  to  cheers.    They 
wonld  just  as  soon  have  applauded  the  lord's  Prayer.     Lincoln 
had   been   disappointed.      He    felt   that   though   his   heart    had 
spoken,  he  had  not  touched  his  people  as  he  craved.    He  had  not 
even  read  the  newspapers  which  proclaimed  his  words  in  tones 
of  far  greater  praise  than  those  accorded  to  the  finished  effort  of 
Everett.    A  boy  all  out  of  breath  from  running  and  with  tears 
streaming  down  his  cheeks,  stumbled  against  him  and  almost  fell. 
''What's  the  trouble,  sonny?"  said  Lincoln.    The  lad  told  him  he 
was  looking  for  a  lawyer;  his  brother,  a  Confederate  officer,  was 
dying  in  the  prison  hospital  and  wished  to  make  his  will.    Lin- 
coln said,  "Why,  I  used  to  be  a  lawyer — I'll  go  with  you."    They 
came  to  the  man's  bedside.     The  will  was  drawn  and  executed. 
The  officer  then  said  to  Lincoln,  "I've  never  liked  a  stranger  as 
much  in  short  order  before."    The  magic  of  this  marvelous  per- 
sonality was  ever  drawing  souls  to  him.    And  then  the  officer  be- 
gan to  talk  of  Lincoln.    "Have  you  read  his  speech  of  yesterday 
in  the  papers?"  said  he.     "No,"  replied  Lincoln,   "I  haven't." 
And  then  this  sick  man  asked  his  boy  brother  to  read  it  aloud. 
"Fourscore  and  seven  years  ago,"  the  fresh  voice  began — and 
ended  with  those  immortal  words:  "We  here  highly  resolve  that 
these  dead  shall  not  have  died  in  vain,  that  this  Nation,  under 
God,  shall  have  a  new  birth  of  freedom,  and  that  government  of 
the  people,  by  the  people,  for  the  people  shall  not  perish  from 
the  earth."    And  then  the  Confederate  said:  "It  is  a  wonderful 
speech.    To  feel  that  your  enemy  can  fight  you  to  death  without 
malice  and  with  charity — it  lifts  country,  it  lifts  humanity  to 
something  worth  dying  for.     That  man  is  inspired  by  principle 
and  not  by  animosity  in  this  fight.     Oh,  how  I  wish  that  I  could 
put  my  hand  in  his  before  I  go,  and  I'd  like  to  tell  him  that  I 
know  what  we  are  all  fighting  for,  the  best  of  us,  is  the  right 


90  THE   REPUBLICAN   CLUB 

of  our  country  as  it  is  given  us  to  see  it."  And  then  came  the 
death  struggle,  and  this  man  died  with  his  hand  placed  in  that 
of  Abraham  Lincoln — where  he  wished  it.  Here  was  the  perfect 
tribute.  At  the  portals  of  death  there  was  given  to  this  man  a 
vision  of  the  truth  as  the  whole  South  sees  it  to-day. 

Lincoln's  life  was  devoted  to  the  proposition  that  the  Union 
was  perpetual;  that  the  rich  and  beautiful  South  belonged  to 
and  was  part  of  the  Nation's  life  blood,  and  with  prophetic  vision 
he  saw  the  land  of  the  magnolia  and  the  orange  blossom  again 
restored  to  the  confederation  of  States,  so  that  her  magnificent 
destiny  could  best  be  fulfilled.  "We  are  not  enemies  but  friends," 
he  said.  And  he  prayed  that  the  whole  people  should  be  led  back 
to  the  ''perfect  enjoyment  of  union  and  fraternal  peace."  And 
do  you  remember  that  he  said,  "Both  read  the  same  Bible  and 
pray  to  the  same  God;  and  each  invokes  His  aid  against  the 
other"?  He  of  all  men  knew  the  conflict  was  based  on  sheer 
difference  of  principle,  and  yet  with  all  of  his  soul  he  felt  that 
the  Union  must  be  preserved  at  whatever  sacrifice.  And  to-day 
when  the  roll  call  of  the  States  in  both  of  our  great  national 
conventions  begins  with  resonant  "Alabama"  and  Alabama  an- 
swers "Present";  and,  continuing,  the  noble  roster  peals  forth  the 
name  of  mighty  "Massachusetts"  and  Massachusetts  answers 
^'Present,"  and  again  continuing,  calls  for  glorious  "Virginia"  to 
answer  to  her  name,  and  Virginia  answers  "Present" — and  so  on 
and  on  until  every  State  and  Territory  has  answered  "Present" — 
a  swelling  chorus  thrown  to  the  heavens  by  a  reunited  family  in 
fulfillment  of  this  man's  prayer — a  noble  oratorio  that  compels 
the  very  soul  of  us  to  fall  upon  its  bended  knees  in  thankfulness 

to-day,  when  all  wounds  are  healed  and  all  rancor  is  forgotten, 

the  sunny  South  challenges  the  proud  North,  not  to  conflict,  not 
to  strife,  but  to  excel  it  in  undying  love  for  Abraham  Lincoln. 


ADDRESS  OF  MR.  CHARLES  0.  MAAS  91 

Ask  any  honest  man  to-day  who  lives  in  the  South,  ^'Would 
you  have  your  Capitol  at  Richmond?"  And  the  answer  would 
come  back  as  swift  and  as  sharp  as  a  rifle  speaks,  "No,  the  Capi- 
tol at  Washington  is  good  enough  for  me."  And  if  he  were  a 
man  of  thought  he  would  add,  ''When  Lincoln  abolished  slavery 
he  freed  the  masters  more  from  the  slaves  than  he  freed  the 
slaves  from  the  masters.  Slavery  was  the  father  of  indolence, 
the  creator  of  caste,  the  blight  of  progress,  the  death  of  ambition. 
When  the  master  lost  his  slaves  he  became  independent  instead 
of  remaining  dependent.  For  the  first  time  he  stood  upon  his 
own  feet.  The  purchase  of  labor  substituted  for  the  purchase  of 
men  quickened  his  pulses  to  accomplish  things  in  the  great  field 
of  human  equality.  The  spirit  of  Americanism  as  we  now  under- 
stand it  was  breathed  into  his  nostrils.  And  thus  it  is  that  you 
hear  the  glad  bells  of  prosperity  ringing  down  the  Valley  of  the 
Mississippi."  And  thus  it  is,  my  friends,  that  Lincoln  still  lives 
to-day  and  that  his  achievement  has  permitted  me,  born  and  bred 
as  I  was  in  the  City  of  New  Orleans,  to  speak  of  him  in  loving 
tones  for  the  Southland. 

Many  have  endeavored  in  prose  and  in  poetry  to  explain  this 
man — and  none  has  succeeded.  To  explain  Shakespeare  would 
be  a  task  equally  impossible.  And  just  as  the  man  from  Strat- 
ford, without  scholastic  attainment,  gave  us  the  most  price- 
less treasures  in  all  literature,  so  the  man  from  Kentucky,  equally 
hampered,  gave  to  us  through  the  sermon  of  his  life  a  force  in 
the  uplift  of  humanity  that  shall  never  spend  itself  while  men 
feel  and  think.  Genius  shall  ever  be  incomprehensible  to  us  who 
are  only  permitted  to  eat  of  its  fruits.  And  yet  it  is  good  to 
dwell  upon  the  human  phase  of  Lincoln.  Aside  from  the  exalta- 
tion that  was  his  and  that  makes  him  an  ever-living  pyramid  of 
strength  and  example  to  our  national  being,  it  is  a  joy  to  regard 


92  THE  REPUBLICAN   CLUB 

him  just  as  a  man.  Why  did  the  people  love  the  man  Lincoln 
so  much?  Why  is  it  that,  whereas  you  and  I  so  pride  ourselves 
upon  the  incalculable  asset  of  the  few  genuine  friendships  that 
are  ours  in  life,  he  was  looked  upon  by  thousands  upon  thousands 
not  merely  as  their  leader  but  as  their  friend?  Indeed,  I  write 
him  down  as  the  sincerest  friend  in  the  deepest  sense  of  the  word 
that  the  people  ever  had.  Assuredly  this  was  due  to  his  utter 
unselfishness,  coupled  with  infinite  sympathy  and  love  for  his 
fellows.  Of  course,  he  loved  those  of  the  fair  sex.  How  could 
he  do  otherwise?  And  yet  a  charming  woman  who  knew  him 
well  in  his  young  manhood  said,  "Indeed,  I  think  the  only  thing 
we  girls  had  against  him  was  that  he  always  attracted  all  the 
men  around  him."  He  was  essentially  a  man's  man.  He  was  a 
great  cosmopolite.  He  understood  men  and  reveled  in  associa- 
tion with  them.  He  was  so  beloved  because  he  gave  no  food  to 
self.  He  never  obtruded — ^he  cared  not  for  the  lime  light — his 
marvelous  humor  was  not  employed  to  gain  him  a  reputation  as 
a  raconteur,  but  to  make  a  point  or  to  rivet  an  argument.  His 
soul  fabric  as  contrasted  with  his  intellect  was  so  marvelous  in 
its  texture  that  it  developed  an  infinite  capacity  for  friendship. 
And  so  I  understand  the  tears  and  the  anguish  of  his  friends — ^the 
whole  people — when  his  body  fell. 

Joseph  Eoux  said:  "We  call  that  person  who  has  lost  his  par- 
ents an  orphan;  and  a  widower,  that  man  who  has  lost  his  wife; 
but  he  who  has  known  the  immense  unhappiness  of  losing  a 
friend,  by  what  name  do  we  call  him?  Here  every  human  lan- 
guage holds  its  peace  in  impotence."  The  men  who  mourned 
Lincoln's  loss  have  nearly  all  passed  away.  But  the  miracle  of 
it  all  is  that  this  capacity  for  friendship  of  which  I  speak  was 
so  illimitable  that  those  who  knew  him  not  and  who  have  come 
after  him  also  are  his  friends.     Nay,  Lincoln  is  not  dead.     He 


ADDEESS  OF  ME.  CHAELES  0.  HAAS  93 

has  been  called  the  gentlest  memory  in  all  the  world.  He  is 
more  than  this.  He  is  a  living,  breathing  spirit  that  suffuses  the 
soul  of  every  man  and  woman  who  loves  this  land  of  ours,  always 
calling  forth  the  best,  the  noblest,  the  most  patriotic  that  is  in 
us  to  the  perpetuation  of  the  greatest  representative  government 
that  has  ever  thrived  under  the  eye  and  under  the  blessing  of 
Almighty  God. 


CHAUNCEY  M.   (MITCHELL)    DEPEW 

TT.  S.  Senator  from  New  York;  Famous  after-dinner 
speaker;  Actively  associated  with  Republican  party 
and  politics  throughout  a  long  life  and  distinguished 
career. 


ADDRESS    OF 

HON.  CHAUNCEY  M.  DEPEW 


Mr.  President,  for  a  man  who  congratulated  himself  that  he 
was  going  to  attend  a  dinner  and  hear  the  President  and  great 
orators,  that  he  had  no  responsibilities,  that  he  should  enjoy  what 
was  offered,  both  in  the  solid  and  fluid,  without  stint,  when  he  is 
sitting,  preliminary  to  that,  alongside  of  his  wife  as  she  is  taking 
her  tea  at  six  o'clock,  to  receive  a  telephone  message  like  the  one 
which  has  just  been  reported  by  our  presiding  officer  to  speak 
within  an  hour  in  the  place  of  two  of  the  most  distinguished 
men  in  the  country,  is  enough  to  disturb  a  nervous  man. 

General  Garfield  once  said  to  me,  "You  cannot  take  too  many 
chances  without  hurting  your  reputation.'*  ''No  man  who  has 
made  a  reputation  should  attempt  to  speak  unless  he  has  been 
notified  long  before  and  had  ample  opportunity  for  preparation; 
but  some  day,  though  you  keep  this  up,  and  you  will  make  a 
speech,  on  a  short  call,  and  the  failure  of  it  will  be  so  phenomenal, 
that  it  will  end  the  reptuation  of  a  lifetime."  Remembering  that, 
last  summer  I  called  a  classmate  of  mine,  and  had  him  compile 
eight  volumes  of  my  speeches  and  so  I  say,  as  did  Daniel  Webster, 
or  somebody  else — I  don't  remember  who — "The  past,  at  least,  is 
secure." 

When  a  man  speaks  extemporaneously,  he  is  apt  to  be  apolo- 
gizing for  it  for  some  time  afterwards.     There  have  been  distin- 


96  THE  EEPUBLICAK  CLXTB 

gnished  examples  of  that  in  our  recent  history.  I  remember  the 
charming  lady  who  was  doing  the  best  she  could,  distributing 
tracts  before  she  got  on  the  paltform  to  speak,  and  in  handing 
one  to  a  cabby,  he  said  to  her,  ^'Excuse  me.  Miss,  I  am  happily 
married,  and  I  don't  believe  in  divorce";  the  tract  was  entitled, 
"Abide  with  me." 

I  was  pleased  with  the  speech  of  our  President,  Mr.  Bannard, 
in  which,  after  complimenting  everybody  who  came  here  to  this 
entertainment,  he  said  that  "without  the  inspiration  of  the 
women,  where  would  we  be?"  Look  at  him,  look  at  him,  at  his 
time  of  life,  and  he  is  not  married  yet! 

Now,  an  occasion  like  this  necessarily  leads  to  a  comparison  be- 
tween the  past  and  the  present.  The  first  speech  I  ever  heard 
Mr.  Lincoln  make,  was  the  one  that  he  did  not  make.  It  was  at 
Peekskill.  The  whole  population  had  gathered  for  the  ten  min- 
utes in  which  he  was  to  address  us  on  his  way  to  Washington. 
The  local  celebrity,  who  had  been  in  Congress  with  him,  repre- 
sented the  people  for  the  welcoming  speech,  and  before  the  wel- 
coming speech  was  concluded,  the  train  moved  off  with  Mr.  Lin- 
coln laughing. 

In  1864,  there  devolved  upon  me,  as  Secretary  of  State,  the 
duty  of  collecting  soldiers'  votes,  because  the  Legislature  was 
Republican,  and  the  Governor,  Horatio  Seymour,  was  a  Demo- 
crat, and  so  they  didn't  give  it  to  the  Governor.  I  stayed  three 
months  in  Washington,  and  Stanton,  Secretary  of  War,  refused  to 
^ve  me  the  information  necessary  to  reach  the  New  York  sol- 
diers in  the  field  with  ballots.  New  York  had  over  300,000  sol- 
diers scattered  over  the  South.  In  great  rage,  after  being  roughly 
turned  down  by  Stanton,  I  was  going  out  of  the  War  Office  one 
afternoon,  when  I  met  Mr.  Washburn,  who  at  that  time  was  the 
special  representative  and  most  intimate  friend  of  Mr.  Lincoln. 


ADDRESS  OF  HON.  CHATTNCEY  M.  DEPEW  97 

I  told  him  what  was  the  matter,  and  he  said,  "What  are  you  go- 
ing to  do?"  I  said,  "I  have  got  to  clear  my  own  skirts.  I  am 
going  to  New  York  to  publish  in  the  papers  that  the  administra- 
tion will  not  give  me  the  localities  where  the  New  York  troops 
are,  and  so  they  cannot  vote."  He  said,  "Look  here,  Depew,  that 
beats  Lincoln."  "Well,"  I  said,  "then  give  me  the  voters'  ad- 
dresses." He  said,  "You  don't  know  Abe.  He  is  a  great  Presi- 
dent, but  he  is  also  a  great  politician,  and  if  there  was  no  other 
way  of  getting  those  votes,  he  would  go  around  with  a  carpet 
bag  and  collect  them  himself."  Within  an  hour,  I  was  summoned 
into  the  presence  of  a  changed  Secretary  of  War,  so  polite  that  I 
didn't  know  him,  and  on  the  midnight  train  I  went  off  with  the 
locations  of  the  troops. 

Now,  there  has  been  much  criticism  about  a  President  work- 
ing, while  he  is  in  office,  for  re-election,  but  here  is  the  example, 
after  fifty  years,  of  the  man  whom  we  are  celebrating  here  to- 
night, who  would  have  gone  around  with  a  carpet  bag  to  collect 
the  votes  if  there  was  no  other  way  of  getting  them.  And  I  am 
sure  our  President,  Mr.  Taft,  is  justified  in  doing  what  he  can  in 
that  line,  as  he  did  so  magnificently  in  his  speech  here  to-night. 
It  certainly  is  dramatic  for  one  who  has  that  recollection  of  the 
year  preceding  the  presidential  election  of  Mr.  Lincoln,  to  again, 
nearly  fifty  years  afterwards,  be  in  the  hall  with  a  President,  the 
year  before  his  re-election,  with  the  condition  virtually  un- 
changed. It  reminds  me  that  possibly  nothing  changes  in  this 
world.  Certainly,  in  my  long  experience  in  public  life,  I  have 
found  that  nothing  changes  in  the  fundamentals;  the  change  is 
only  in  the  scenery,  the  surroundings,  and  the  dramatic  effect. 

We  celebrated,  in  December,  the  landing  of  the  Mayflower. 
Why?  Because,  in  the  cabin  of  the  Mayflower,  was  enunciated 
that  charter  which  first  gave  the  principle  of  equality  of  all  men 


98  THE  REPUBLICAN  CLUB 

before  the  law.  We  celebrated  here,  this  last  week,  the  first 
treaty  ever  made  by  the  United  States,  the  treaty  with  France 
which  gave  to  us  Lafayette,  Rochambeau,  and  DeGraff,  and  the 
French  army  and  the  French  navy,  and  the  credit  and  munitions 
of  war,  which  enabled  us  to  win  our  independence.  We  celebrate 
to-night  Mr.  Lincoln  and  his  administration  of  fifty  years  ago, 
and  we  will  celebrate,  on  the  twenty-second  of  this  month,  Wash- 
ington's birthday,  with  all  that  it  means.  Last  summer  I  was  in 
France,  and  I  went  out  one  Sunday  to  Versailles,  where  all  Paris 
goes,  and  I  accompanied  the  crowd  as  they  went  through  that 
marvelous  palace  of  Louis  XIV,  and  as  they  paused  in  the  little 
room,  with  its  memories  of  Napoleon,  of  the  Empress  Josephine, 
and  of  Marie  Antoinette.  What  struck  me  more  than  anything 
else,  accustomed  as  I  have  been,  all  my  life,  to  go  to  historic 
places  in  America  where  there  was  enthusiasm  and  reverence,  was 
that  those  people  went  by  as  sightseers  and  as  tourists,  because 
Versailles,  with  its  memories  of  the  Bourbon  kings,  and  of  Napo- 
leon, and  of  an  absolute  autocracy,  and  of  an  empire,  conveyed 
nothing  to  them.  Their  memories  were  only  of  the  thirty-odd 
years  of  the  republic. 

But  we  are  what  we  are  to-day  because  of  our  traditions,  and 
our  traditions  never  change;  the  traditions  of  equality  before  the 
law  enunciated  in  the  cabin  of  the  Mayflower,  the  traditions  of 
the  Declaration  of  Independence  in  Independence  Hall,  the  tra- 
ditions of  Washington  and  what  he  stood  for  and  what  he  ac- 
complished, and  to-night,  the  traditions  of  what  Lincoln  stood  for. 
We  are  here  now  as  a  Republican  club,  and  Lincoln  was  a  Re- 
publican President.  All  sides  of  him  have  been  superbly  pre- 
sented. The  tribute  which  our  President  paid  was  finely  said 
and  deserved,  that  he  was  the  President  of  all  parties;  and  that 
beautiful  tribute,  so  eloquent  and  appreciative,  by  the  orator  of 


ADDRESS  OF  HON.  CHAUNCEY  M.  DEPEW  99 

the  evening,  as  to  Lincoln's  characteristics,  from  a  Southern  man, 
was  equally  deserved.  But  Lincoln  was  a  partisan,  and  Lincoln 
was  a  Eepublican.  We  are  now  here  to-night  as  partisans  and 
Eepublicans,  most  of  us. 

Lincoln  stood  for  what?  For  the  questions  of  his  day.  Have 
they  changed?  They  have  changed  only  in  form.  We  have  not 
the  slave  labor  question  any  longer,  but  we  have  labor  questions 
which  are  to  be  decided  upon  broad  principles,  as  Lincoln  would 
have  decided  them  if  they  had  arisen  in  his  time.  He  had  to 
provide  revenue  for  the  purpose  of  supporting  the  army  and  car- 
rying on  the  Government.  He  had  to  develop  the  resources  of  the 
country  which  would  support  the  people  here,  if  we  won,  and 
while  we  were  fighting.  Now,  what  did  he  do?  He  inaugurated 
and  carried  through  the  most  drastic  measure  of  protection  of 
American  industries  that  any  President  ever  suggested.  It  was 
absolute  protection,  not  so  high  but  that  it  furnished  revenue, 
and  yet  high  enough  to  cause  the  development  of  one  industry 
after  another,  and  to  continue  to  the  laboring  man  of  this  coun- 
try that  measure  of  wage  which  makes  him  more  independent, 
and  with  greater  possibilities  and  hopefulness  than  ever  existed 
before  in  any  country  in  the  world. 

Now,  we  come  down  to  our  own  time,  and  we  have  meeting 
us,  and  meeting  President  Taft,  very  much  the  same  things  that 
met  Lincoln,  so  far  as  the  fundamentals  are  concerned,  or  the 
principles  upon  which  we  fight.  And  I  want  to  say,  as  a  veteran 
campaigner  who  has  stumped  this  country  for  different  Presidents 
for  fifty-six  years,  that  that  speech  of  forty  minutes  made  here 
to-night  by  President  Taft  will  be  the  text-book  of  the  campaign. 
We  will  all  copy  from  it,  we  will  all  take  texts  from  it,  and  we 
will  make  the  welkin  ring  all  over  the  country  with  the  promises 


100  THE  KEPUBIICAH   CLTTB 

which  it  contains,  and  when  it  results,  as  it  will  result,  in  his 
election  next  November,  we  will  say,  "Taft,  you  did  it!** 

Now,  I  was  reading  to-night  in  an  English  paper  the  speech 
made  by  Shuster  in  London,  and  it  gave  me  an  understanding  of 
those  great  principles  for  which  Lincoln  stood,  for  which  Wash- 
ington stood,  and  for  which  every  statesman  in  America  who  is 
successful  must  stand.  He  says,  in  effect,  '1  went  to  Persia,  com- 
missioned to  put  her  finances  in  order.  I  found  universal  cor- 
ruption. I  found  the  money  was  ample,  but  it  was  all  diverted 
to  the  personal  use  of  grafters,  from  royalty  down.  I  said  to  the 
first  constituent  assembly,  elected  by  the  people,  that  Persia  ever 
had  in  all  her  history,  from  the  time  of  Cyrus  the  Great,  *Will 
you  give  me  power  to  do  as  I  have  a  mind  to?*  And  they  said, 
*Yes'  unanimously.  'Then,*  he  said,  'I  found  there  was  money 
enough  for  all  purposes,  and  I  began  to  collect  it,  and  to  apply 
it  to  the  legitimate  purposes  of  the  real  resurrection  of  Persia, 
so  that  she  could  stand  upon  her  liberal  principles,  and  go  ahead, 
when  Russia  suddenly  said,  'That  is  not  what  you  are  here  for; 
what  we  want  is  demoralization  and  bankruptcy,  because  that 
is  our  opportunity  to  seize  Persia.'  '* 

Well,  my  friends,  contrast  that  with  the  principles  that  have 
been  at  the  bottom  of  American  policies  in  treating  with  other 
countries.  Contrast  it  with  our  treatment  of  the  Philippines,  of 
Cuba,  of  Hawaii,  contrast  it  with  what  we  did  when  one  of  the 
greatest  of  our  secretaries  of  state,  our  own  club  member,  Elihu 
Boot,  made  his  famous  visit,  as  Secretary  of  State,  to  the  South- 
ern Republics. 

Somebody  says — I  don't  know  who;  Governor  Black,  with  his 
marvelous  memory  will  recall  it — that  there  will  never  be  any- 
thing but  war  tumult  and  revolution  south  of  the  Gulf  of  Mexico, 
but  the  policy  of  the  American  Government,  under  Roosevelt, 


ADDRESS  OF  HON.   CHAUNCEY  M.  DEPEW  101 

and  under  Taft,  is  g^iving  to  those  American  republics  on  the 
Isthmus  and  in  South  America  greater  stability  than  ever  be- 
fore, because  we  stand  behind  them  and  say,  ''We  don't  want 
your  territory,  we  don't  want  an  inch  of  your  land,  we  don't 
want  any  influence  with  you  except  to  protect  you  under  the 
Monroe  Doctrine,  but  what  we  do  demand  is  that  you  shall  work 
out  your  own  salvation  on  the  eternal  principles  of  our  Declara- 
tion of  Independence  and  of  the  charter  of  equal  laws  of  the 
Mayflower."    And  that  is  dollar  diplomacy! 

Now,  Lincoln  was  President  fifty  years  ago;  Taft  is  President 
to-night.  Lincoln  was  a  candidate  for  re-election  fifty  years  ago; 
Taft  to-night  is  a  candidate  for  re-election.  What  is  the  differ- 
ence between  the  two  men?  Mr.  Taft  is  the  product  of  the 
school,  of  the  college.  He  is  the  product  of  the  best  culture  that 
America  can  give.  He  is  the  product  of  the  training  which  has 
g^ven  him  that  judicial  mind  which  has  enabled  him  to  decide 
more  questions  than  any  other  President  in  my  time,  and  decide 
them  right;  which  has  enabled  him  to  present  more  constructive 
and  progressive  legislation,  and  secure  it,  than  any  other  Presi- 
dent of  my  time,  and  yet,  as  a  scholar  and  as  a  judge,  he  lacks 
the  faculty  of  advertisement  and  a  brass  band.  If  he  had  those 
two  qualities,  he  would  be  absolutely  resistless.  Every  dead  wall 
in  the  country,  and  every  farmer's  fence,  and  every  home,  would 
be  filled  with  pictures  and  flaming  eloquence  which  would  indi- 
cate that  the  salvation  of  every  man,  woman  and  child,  had  been 
secured,  built  up  and  riveted,  and  with  another  term  would  be 
fenced  in  and  white-washed  over  head,  and  nothing  more  could 
be  done  by  any  human  being. 

Now,  we  come  to  Lincoln.  He  was  a  different  man.  No  one 
in  any  country  ever  started  life  so  unpromisingly  as  Abraham 
Lincoln.    Nothing  equals  the  poverty  and  hopelessness  of  a  poor 


102  THE   REPUBLICAN    CLUB 

white  cabin  in  the  South,  and  especially  at  that  time.  And  yet 
he  came  out  of  that,  but  there  was  in  him  the  wonderful  genius 
which  nobody  can  account  for.  You  can't  account  for  Milton 
or  Shakespeare.  You  can't  account  for  Lincoln.  What  did  he 
represent?  The  first  books  he  got  hold  of,  he  read  over  and  over. 
First  was  the  Bible,  next  was  "Pilgrim's  Progress,"  and  next  was 
"Aesop's  Fables,"  and  next  was  Weem's  "Life  of  Washington." 
Now,  those  made  him  a  story  teller,  because  Weem's  "Life  of 
Washington"  has  probably  within  its  pages  more  stories  that 
never  happened  to  Washington,  than  any  book  ever  written.  In 
Weem's  "Life  of  Washington"  you  find  the  cherry  tree  story, 
and  nowhere  else.  And  yet  that  lie  has  done  infinite  good  to  all 
the  youths  of  the  country,  because  it  was  a  fundamental  lie  in 
the  defence  of  the  truth.  "Aesop's  Fables"  furnished  him  with 
stories.  I  found  out  this  about  Lincoln,  that  he  never  argued 
anything.  He  simply  told  a  story,  or  else  cracked  a  joke,  but 
it  met  the  thing  on  all  fours,  so  that  if  you  were  on  the  opposite 
side  you  had  nothing  to  say.  My  old  friend,  John  Ganson,  the 
ablest  lawyer  we  had  in  Western  New  York,  was  a  war  Democrat, 
and  he  supported  Mr.  Lincoln.  He  was  a  fine  looking,  very  dig- 
nified man,  with  a  very  impressive  appearance  and  way  of  talk- 
ing, and  he  had  not  a  spear  of  hair  on  his  head  or  anywhere 
about  his  face.  He  went  up  one  day,  he  told  me,  to  Mr.  Lincoln, 
when  things  looked  very  bad  at  the  front,  and  everybody  was 
discouraged,  and  he  said,  "Mr.  President,  you  know,  sir,  that  I 
am  a  war  Democrat.  I  am  leaving  my  party  to  support  your 
measures,  because  I  believe  in  the  country  first  and  the  party 
next.  Now,  things  look  very  bad  at  the  front,  and  I  think,  with 
this  relation  to  you  and  your  administration,  I  ought  to  know 
just  how  things  are.  How  are  they,  sir?"  Mr.  Lincoln  looked 
at  him  for  a  minute,  and  then  said,  in  his  quizzical  way,  "Gan- 


ADDRESS  OF  HON.  CHAUNCEY  M.  DEPEW  103 

son,  how  clean  you  shave!"  There  was  a  party  of  New  York 
financiers  who  went  down  to  Washington,  and  the  New  York 
financier  is  a  mighty  able  man — in  Wall  Street.  But  he  sees  the 
present,  and  he  wants  to  provide  for  that.  The  financial  situa- 
tion was  frightful,  because  gold  was  so  reduced  in  volume.  They 
said:  "Mr.  President,  we  are  here  representing  the  financial  in- 
terests in  the  financial  center  of  the  country,  and  we  think  that 
the  best  thing  to  do  is  to  take  the  gold  out  of  the  treasury  and 
give  it  to  the  people."  But  Mr.  Lincoln  knew  that  what  little 
gold  there  was  in  the  treasury  was  all  the  basis  the  country  had 
for  its  credit  and  the  enormous  volume  of  paper  currency  which 
had  been  put  out.  Now,  did  he  argue  that  question  with  those 
financiers?  No,  he  knew  they  would  beat  him  out  of  sight  in 
an  argument,  but  he  said  to  them:  "Gentlemen,  out  in  Illinois, 
when  I  was  practicing  law,  the  farmers  were  troubled  because  of 
a  disease  among  the  hogs  that  was  carrying  them  off  and  likely 
to  destroy  the  whole  of  that  industry.  Someone  suggested  that 
the  way  to  cure  the  hogs  was  to  cut  off  their  tails.  So  they  cut 
them  off,  and  they  were  cured.  The  next  year  the  same  disease 
came  back,  but  they  all  died  because  there  were  no  tails." 

Now,  no  man  recovers  from  his  environment  and  the  infiu- 
ences  of  his  birth,  and  the  associations  of  his  childhood,  no  matter 
how  great  may  be  his  opportunities  afterwards,  no  matter  how 
wonderful  the  culture  that  has  come  to  him,  nor  how  great  his 
ability  to  take  advantage  of  it.  The  environment  of  his  humble 
home  will  always  cling  to  him,  and  always  be  in  evidence.  Now, 
Lincoln  passed  the  whole  of  that  formative  period  of  his  life 
among  a  frontier  people.  He  had  singular  and  original  experi- 
ences. He  loved  to  be  down  at  the  country  store,  or  the  country 
bar  room,  although  he  never  drank,  and  there  exchange  stories 
and  listen  to  stories  among  those  adventurous  and  original  peo- 


104  THE   REPUBLICAN   CLUB 

pie.  He  loved  to  go  around  the  circuit,  and  when  they  reached 
the  county  towns  they  all  stopped  at  the  same  hotel  and  they 
stayed  up  all  night — the  judge  and  the  lawyers  and  the  witnesses, 
and  the  grand  and  petit  jury  men — swapping  these  experiences. 
I  asked  him  once,  ''Where  do  you  get  so  many  stories?^*  And 
he  told  me  that  it  was  in  this  way  that  I  have  just  described. 
So  he  got  into  the  habit,  much  to  the  disgust  of  Chase,  who  was 
a  "turvey  drop,"  and  of  other  people  around  him,  of  meeting 
questions  with  these  stories,  most  of  which  were  not  in  print. 

On  the  other  side,  there  was  another  Lincoln  formed  on  his 
daily  reading  of  the  Bible,  which  he  knew  by  heart,  and  Bun- 
yan's  "Pilgrim's  Progress,"  which  he  knew  by  heart.  The  Eng- 
lish language,  in  its  noblest  form  as  it  is  to-day,  has  been  formed 
by  the  King  James  version  of  the  English  Bible.  It  has  been 
literature,  pure  and  undefiled,  which  has  given  to  our  writers,  in 
the  English  tongue,  their  distinction,  and  inspiration.  That 
formed  Lincoln's  style.  It  also  formed  the  basis  from  which  he 
built  up  those  principles  of  eternal  truth  which  led  to  the  Eman- 
cipation Proclamation,  which  led  also  to  his  infinite  charity, 
which  would  have  eradicated  many  evils  had  he  lived  to  go 
through  his  second  term.  It  was  the  education  from  this  founda- 
tion which  gave  to  the  world  those  two  imperishable  productions, 
that  oration  which  will  live  forever,  the  Gettysburg  speech,  and 
that  finest  State  paper  ever  written  by  a  President,  and  which 
never  can  be  copied,  Lincoln's  second  inaugural  address. 


ADDRESS    OF 

PRESIDENT  WILLIAM  HOWARD  TAFT 


Gentlemen  of  the  Republican  Club  of  the  City  of  New  York: 
This  is  Lincoln's  birthday.  We  are  met  to  celebrate  it.  We  can- 
not claim  Lincoln  as  belonging  exclusively  to  us  Republicans, 
or  treat  his  name  as  a  mere  party  symbol.  He  belongs  to  the 
country  and  to  the  world  as  one  of  its  great  characters.  But 
the  fact  is  that  during  his  whole  career,  and  especially  during 
that  part  of  it  in  which  he  disclosed  those  traits  that  made  him 
great,  and  that  have  rendered  his  memory  sacred,  the  principles 
that  he  followed  and  that  he  was  able  to  vindicate  and  put  far 
on  the  way  of  becoming  the  foundation  stones  of  the  Republic, 
were  the  principles  of  the  Republican  party;  and  the  reason  why 
the  Republican  party  may  not  now  claim  him  exclusively  as  one 
of  their  great  leaders  and  their  great  saint,  is  not  because  the 
party  stands  for  something  different  from  what  it  stood  for  when 
Lincoln  was  at  its  head,  but  it  is  that,  being  a  party  of  progress, 
it  has  achieved  and  made  of  permanent  acceptance  by  the  whole 
people  the  thing  for  which  it  fought  and  in  which  it  followed 
Lincoln's  leadership. 

Men  praise  Lincoln  to-day  and  attack  the  Republican  party, 
although  forgetful  of  the  fact  that  in  Lincoln's  life  the  man  and 
the  party  were  so  closely  united  in  aim  and  accomplishment,  that 
the  history  of  the  one  is  the  history  of  the  other.     The  truth  is 


106  THE   REPUBLICAN   CLUB 

that  the  history  of  the  last  fifty  years,  with  one  or  two  exceptions, 
has  been  the  history  of  the  Republican  party — ^the  progress  that 
has  been  made  by  the  Eepublican  party  in  the  legislative  and 
executive  power  entrusted  to  it  by  the  people  at  large. 

There  are  those  who  look  upon  the  present  situation  as  one 
full  of  evil  and  corruption  and  as  a  tyranny  of  concentrated 
wealth,  and  who  in  apparent  despair  at  any  ordinary  remedy  are 
seeking  to  pull  down  those  things  which  have  been  regarded  as 
the  pillars  of  the  temple  of  freedom  and  representative  govern- 
ment, and  to  reconstruct  our  whole  society  on  some  new  prin- 
ciple, not  definitely  formulated,  and  with  no  intelligent  or  in- 
telligible forecast  of  the  exact  constitutional  and  statutory  re- 
sults to  be  attained.  With  the  effort  to  make  the  selection  of 
candidates,  the  enactment  of  legislation,  and  the  decision  of 
courts  to  depend  on  the  momentary  passions  of  a  people  neces- 
sarily indifferently  informed  as  to  the  issues  presented,  and  with- 
out the  opportunity  to  them  for  time  and  study  and  that  delibera- 
tion that  gives  security  and  common  sense  to  the  government  of 
the  people,  such  extremists  would  hurry  us  into  a  condition  which 
could  find  no  parallel  except  in  the  French  revolution,  or  in  that 
bubbling  anarchy  that  once  characterized  the  South  American 
Republics.  Such  extremists  are  not  progressives — ^they  are  polit- 
ical emotionalists  or  neurotics,  who  have  lost  that  sense  of  pro- 
portion, that  clear  and  candid  consideration  of  their  own  weak- 
nesses as  a  whole,  and  that  clear  perception  of  the  necessity  for 
checks  upon  hasty  popular  action  which  made  our  people  who 
fought  the  Revolution  and  who  drafted  the  Federal  Constitution, 
the  greatest  self-governing  people  that  the  world  ever  knew. 

The  Constitution  was  framed  to  give  to  all  men  equality  of 
right  before  the  law,  and  the  equality  of  opportunity  that  such 
equality  of  right  before  the  law  was  intended  to  secure.    A  review 


ADDRESS  OF  PRESIDENT  TAFT  107 

of  the  history  of  this  country,  with  the  mutations  in  the  personal 
fortunes  of  the  individuals  that  have  gone  to  make  up  the  peo- 
ple, will  show  that  never  in  the  history  of  the  world  has  there 
been  such  equality  of  opportunity  in  these  United  States,  and  it 
has  been  secured  by  upholding  as  sacred  the  rights  of  individual 
liberty  and  the  rights  of  private  property  in  the  guarantees  of  the 
Federal  and  State  constitutions. 

It  has  been  said,  and  it  is  a  common  platform  expression,  that 
it  is  well  to  prefer  the  man  above  the  dollar,  as  if  the  preservation 
of  property  rights  had  some  other  purpose  than  the  assistance  of 
and  the  uplifting  of  human  rights.  Private  property  was  not 
established  in  order  to  gratify  love  of  material  wealth  or 
capital.  It  was  established  as  an  instrumentality  in  the  progress 
of  civilization  and  the  uplifting  of  man,  and  it  is  equality  of 
opportunity  that  private  property  promotes  by  assuring  to  man 
the  results  of  his  own  labor,  thrift  and  self-restraint.  When, 
therefore,  the  demagogue  mounts  the  platform  and  announces  that 
he  prefers  the  man  above  the  dollar,  he  ought  to  be  interrogated 
as  to  what  he  means  thereby — whether  he  is  in  favor  of  abolish- 
ing the  right  of  the  institution  of  private  property  and  of  taking 
away  from  the  poor  man  the  opportunity  to  become  wealthy  by 
the  use  of  the  abilities  that  God  has  given  him,  the  cultivation 
of  the  virtues  with  which  practice  of  self-restraint  and  the  ex- 
ercise of  moral  courage  will  fortify  him. 

Now  I  am  far  from  saying  that  the  development  of  business, 
the  discovery  of  new  and  effective  methods  of  using  capital  have 
not  produced  problems  which  call  for  additional  action  by  the 
Government  to  prevent  the  abuses  of  the  concentration  of  wealth 
and  the  combination  of  capital.  Moreover,  in  order  to  tempt  in- 
vestment, we  have  doubtless  in  times  past  permitted  the  State  to 
pledge  to  individuals  privileges  more  permanent  and  of  wider 


108  THE   REPUBLICAN   CLUB 

scope  than  the  public  interest  demanded,  and  we  have  permitted 
the  establishment  of  corporations  and  the  acquisition  of  power 
through  the  corrupting  use  of  money  in  politics,  so  as  at  times  to 
give  to  a  few  dangerous  control  in  legislation  and  government; 
but  during  the  last  ten  years  much  progress  against  such  abuses 
has  been  made  in  this  regard.  Statutes  have  been  passed,  notably 
the  anti-trust  statute  and  the  interstate  commerce  law  and  its 
amendments,  to  restrain  a  misuse  of  the  privileges  conferred  by 
charter,  and  if  need  be,  there  is  nothing  in  the  future  of  the 
country  to  prevent,  and  everything  in  the  principles  and  history 
of  the  Eepublican  party  to  forecast,  progress  in  this  direction. 
Indeed  the  only  progress  that  has  been  made  of  a  real  character 
in  these  respects  has  been  made  by  the  legislation  and  execution 
of  those  whom  the  Republican  party  has  put  into  power.  In  so 
far,  therefore,  as  progressive  policy  in  politics  means  the  closer 
regulation  of  State-given  privilege,  so  as  to  secure  its  use  for  the 
benefit  of  the  public,  and  to  restrain  its  abuse  for  the  undue  profit 
of  the  grantee  of  the  privilege,  the  Republican  party  is  entitled 
to  be  called  truly  progressive. 

Its  statesmen  drafted  and  passed  the  anti-trust  law  of  1890, 
and  its  successive  administrations  have  gradually  brought  that 
to  be  a  controlling  force  in  the  proper  limitations  upon  business 
combinations  in  this  country.  It  holds  itself  in  readiness  to  facil- 
itate business  still  more  by  the  adoption  of  a  Federal  Incorpora- 
tion act,  which  on  the  one  hand  will  give  security  to  legitimately 
used  capital,  and  on  the  other  hand  secure  more  certain  compli- 
ance with  the  limitations  of  law  by  the  great  combinations  of 
capital  in  industrial  production  whose  chief  business  is  in  inter- 
state commerce. 

When  the  interstate  commerce  law  was  a  dead  enactment  upon 
the  statute  books  of  the  country  and  its  violation  was  universal 


ADDRESS  OF  PRESIDENT  TAFT  109 

by  all  the  railroads  engaged  in  traffic  between  the  States,  the  Re- 
publican party  passed  the  rebate  bill,  the  rate  bill,  and  finally  in 
this  administration  the  comprehensive  amendment  of  1910  which 
has  now  brought  the  railroads  within  the  complete  control  of  the 
Interstate  Commerce  Commission  and  the  courts. 

In  what  respect  does  this  Interstate  commerce  law  now  need 
amendment?  Certainly  there  have  been  no  suggestions  of  weight 
to  show  that  it  is  not  working  well;  that  the  railroads  are  not 
striving  to  comply  with  its  terms,  and  that  the  evils  and  defects 
in  the  railroad  service  to  the  public  are  not  within  complete 
remedial  effect  by  invoking  the  application  of  the  present  statutes. 
Now  I  admit  that  we  have  progressed  in  our  ideas  since  the  last 
century  in  the  general  view  that  the  Government  is  more  respon- 
sible for  the  comfort,  safety  and  protection  of  the  individual  than 
it  was  thought  to  be  under  the  ''laissez  faire'*  Jeffersonian  doc- 
trine of  government.  We  have  come  to  recognize  that  the  com- 
mon law  as  it  affected  the  relation  of  the  employer  and  the  em- 
ployee was  a  law  framed  under  the  influence  of  the  employer,  and 
that  the  principles  that  obtained  in  that  law,  said  to  be  based 
upon  public  policy,  could  not  be  justified  by  any  proper  modern 
view.  For  that  reason  we  have  adopted  a  new  employers'  liability 
act,  regulating  according  to  a  juster  rule  the  contract  of  employ- 
ment between  the  interstate  commerce  railroads  and  their  em- 
ployees, and  there  is  about  to  report  now  a  Congressional  commit- 
tee which  will  recommend  a  so-called  workmen's  compensation 
act,  which  offers  legal  compensation  to  every  workman  injured 
in  the  business  in  which  he  is  employed,  as  if  he  were  insured 
against  accident. 

We  have  provided  a  mining  bureau  law  looking  to  the  devising 
of  remedies  for  the  saving  of  miners'  lives  through  government 
research,  out  of  the  expense  of  the  Federal  treasury;  we  have 


110  THE   REPUBLICAN   CLUB 

passed  a  statute  providing  for  mediation  and  arbitration  between 
railroads  and  their  employees  which  has  worked  with  marvelous 
success  and  reduced  strikes  to  a  minimum. 

It  has  come  to  be  the  fashion  to  attack  our  courts  on  the  ground 
that  they  are  not  sufficiently  progressive  in  their  sympathies  and 
are  too  much  bound  by  the  letter  of  the  law,  and  do  not  yield  in 
their  construction  of  statutes  to  the  popular  view  of  what  the 
law  ought  to  be  rather  than  what  it  actually  is  in  written  or 
customary  form. 

The  suggestion  is  made  by  which  Judges  are  to  be  subject  to 
the  discipline  of  popular  elections  whenever  the  conclusions  they 
reach  do  not  suit  the  people,  or  their  decisions  are  to  be  submitted 
for  confirmation  or  rejection  by  a  vote  of  the  people.  Such  pro- 
positions undermine  existing  governments,  and  are  directed 
toward  depriving  the  judiciary  of  the  independence  without  which 
they  must  be  an  instrument  of  either  one  man  or  majority 
tyranny.  The  Eepublican  party,  I  am  very  certain,  as  a  national 
party,  respecting  as  it  does  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States, 
the  care  with  which  the  judicial  clauses  of  that  fundamental  in- 
strument were  drawn  to  secure  the  independence  of  the  judiciary, 
will  never  consent  to  an  abatement  of  that  independence  in  the 
slightest  degree,  and  will  stand  with  its  face  like  flint  against 
any  constitutional  changes  in  it  to  take  away  from  the  high 
priests  upon  which  to  administer  justice  the  independence  that 
they  must  enjoy  of  influence  of  powerful  individuals  or  of  power- 
ful majorities. 

The  Kepublican  party  is  not  blind  to  the  defects  in  the  admin- 
istration of  justice  in  this  country.  It  is  not  blind  to  the  neces- 
sity for  changes  in  its  procedure,  in  the  expedition  with  which 
its  judgments  are  rendered,  in  the  cheapness  with  which  justice 
may  be  obtained  and  in  the  certainty  of  punishment  for  crime. 


ADDRESS  OF  PRESIDENT  TAFT  111 

It  is  conscions  that  the  delays  and  expense  of  litigation  tend  to 
deprive  the  poor  litigant  of  an  equality  of  opportunity  with  the 
wealthy  plaintiff  or  defendant,  as  the  case  may  be,  and  that  there 
is  great  room  for  improvement  in  the  manner  of  administering 
justice;  but  this  is  far,  very  far,  from  a  change  in  the  structure 
of  our  courts  by  which  the  "ratio  decidendi"  of  judgments  is  to 
be  changed  from  that  of  law  and  eternal  and  uniform  justice 
to  that  of  the  voice  of  the  majority  in  individual  instances. 

The  Republican  party  is  as  progressive  as  any  party  in  its 
desire  to  perfect  the  judicial  procedure  of  the  country.  Steps 
are  now  being  taken  looking  toward  progress  in  that  direction. 

So  too  with  respect  to  the  tariff.  The  Republican  party  is  not 
a  hidebound  tariff  party.  It  has  changed  its  position  from  that 
Chinese  wall  and  the  imposition  of  customs  duty  sufficient  to 
make  the  tariff  as  high  as  possible  on  everything  that  needs  to  be 
protected.  It  has  come  to  a  much  more  reasonable  view,  to  wit, 
that  the  tariff  rates  on  merchandise  imported  ought  not  to  exceed 
those  which  will  furnish  living  protection  to  the  industries  of 
this  country  with  which  such  imported  merchandise  will  come 
into  competition.  The  Republican  party  has  come  to  recognize 
that  high  tariff  duties  encourage  combinations  of  capital  by  sup- 
pressing competition  to  take  advantage  in  the  domestic  price 
charged,  of  the  excessive  rates  of  duty,  and  that  that  is  a  much 
safer  system  which  limits  the  duties  to  the  measure  of  the  differ- 
ence between  the  cost  of  production  here  and  the  cost  of  produc- 
tion abroad  than  to  the  wholesale  system  of  imposing  high  rates 
in  order  to  secure  protection  at  the  expense  of  everything  else. 
So  far  as  is  consistent  with  the  maintenance  of  the  industries 
in  this  country  under  living  conditions  of  reasonable  profit,  the 
Republican  party  is  in  favor  of  a  revision  and  reduction  of  rates 
on  imported  merchandise.     The  only  proposition  it  insists  on  is 


112  THE  REPTTBLICAN  CLTTB 

that  the  facts  in  respect  to  the  amount  of  protection  needed  by 
established  industries  in  this  country  shall  be  ascertained  after  a 
full  and  complete  report  by  an  impartial  tribunal,  upon  the  facts 
governing  the  production  of  such  merchandise  abroad  and  in  this 
country.  In  other  words,  gentlemen,  the  Republican  party  has 
taken  its  position  and  must  maintain  its  position  in  favor  of  as 
little  disturbance  of  the  business  of  the  country  as  possible  in  re- 
spect to  tariff  changes  by  requiring  that  these  changes  shall  only 
take  place  schedule  by  schedule,  and  then  only  after  a  full  ascer- 
tainment of  the  facts  by  a  non-partisan  tariff  board  or  commission 
which  shall  enable  Congress  and  the  public  at  large  to  know 
what  must  be  the  necessary  effect  of  the  proposed  legislation. 
This  I  consider  a  progressive  policy  of  the  utmost  importance  to 
the  country's  business. 

Heretofore  we  have  had  protective  tariffs,  revenue  tariffs,  and 
all  put  upon  the  statute  book  with  little  or  no  reliable  evidence 
as  to  what  effect  the  tariff  was  going  to  have.  With  the  system 
of  separate  schedules  and  a  tariff  commission,  business  disturbance 
can  be  reduced  to  a  minimum.  While  the  tariff  will  not  be  taken 
out  of  politics,  a  discussion  of  it  will  be  brought  to  an  intelligent 
knowledge  of  the  facts  and  with  the  issues  clearly  drawn  rather 
than  to  a  general  denunciation  on  the  one  side  and  a  general 
affirmation  on  the  other. 

In  matters  of  conservation  and  in  respect  to  all  those  activities 
of  government,  like  those  of  the  Agriculture  Department,  and 
such  other  branches  of  the  government  as  are  directed  to  the 
assistance  and  comfort  of  the  people,  the  Republican  party  is 
necessarily  the  more  progpressive  of  the  two.  Under  the  construc- 
tion which  the  Republican  party  has  always  given  to  the  Con- 
stitution, while  the  institutions  of  civil  liberty  and  private 
property  were  sacredly  maintained,  the  general  provisions  of  the 


ADDRESS  OF  PRESIDENT  TAFT  113 

Federal  Constitution  have  proved  wide  enough  to  enahle  the 
General  Government  under  Republican  legislation  to  assume  many 
burdens  under  which  the  strict  construction  of  the  Constitution, 
traditionally  asserted  by  the  Democratic  party  would  have  been 
impossible. 

The  Republican  party  has  been  progressive  also  in  its  view 
that  this  great  Government,  prosperous,  strong,  independent  and 
responsible,  owes  a  duty  to  weaker  peoples  and  nations  to  assist 
them  in  their  struggle  for  better  things  whenever  occasion  arises 
which  puts  this  Government  in  the  attitude  of  trustee  or  guardian 
or  counsellor  and  friend  of  such  less  fortunate  peoples. 

We  Republicans  believe  in  peace.  We  believe  in  pushing  as 
far  as  we  may  the  principles  of  arbitration  to  secure  peace.  We 
believe  in  the  ultimate  establishment  of  an  arbitral  court  into 
which  any  nation  may  draw  any  other  nation  to  answer  a  com- 
plaint and  abide  judgment;  but  charged  as  we  have  been  with 
actual  government,  we  do  not  allow  ourselves  to  be  blinded  by  a 
mere  fetich  and  to  fail  to  make  proper  preparations  against  pos- 
sible present  dangers,  because  in  the  future  we  may  hope  that 
those  dangers  will  ultimately  disappear.  Therefore,  we  are  in 
favor  of  a  suitable  army  to  maintain  law  and  order  and  protect 
our  interests  and  carry  out  our  duties  in  the  many  parts  of  the 
globe  where  we  are  called  upon  to  act  to-day. 

We  are  just  now  completing  the  Panama  Canal,  and  in  the 
protection  of  that  canal  we  shall  need  3,000  or  4,000  more  sol- 
diers. The  same  thing  is  true  of  Hawaii,  an  island  which  is  next 
to  us  by  the  will  of  the  people,  and  to  which  we  owe  the  debt 
of  adequate  protection.  We  have  an  army  of  mobile  troops  not 
more  than  one  to  a  thousand  of  our  population,  and  now  it  is 
proposed  by  our  Democratic  friends  in  Congress  to  reduce  that 
army  by  eliminating  one-third  of  our  Cavalry.     They  would  cut 


114  THE   EEPTJBLICAN   CLUB 

out  some  of  the  best  Cavalry  in  the  world,  five  reg^imeiits  which 
are  needed  for  a  nucleus  of  a  larger  army  should  we  ever  be  sud- 
denly called  into  war.  For  the  same  reason  they  propose  to  de- 
part from  the  time-honored  practice  of  adding  to  our  navy  each 
year  two  battleships  by  cutting  them  off  altogether  this  year.  In 
considering  our  many  responsibilities  in  different  parts  of  the 
world,  I  think  this  is  a  great  mistake.  Certainly  the  diminution 
in  the  additions  to  the  fleet  ought  not  to  be  contemplated  until 
the  Panama  Canal  is  completed.  In  other  words,  our  Democratic 
friends  are  doing  the  very  thing  that  they  are  always  reputed  to 
do,  they  are  doing  the  wrong  thing  at  the  right  time.  With  un- 
failing accuracy  they  have  selected  as  their  policy  that  which  is 
least  defensible  under  existing  conditions. 

I  have  not  enumerated  and  could  not  because  time  would  not 
permit,  the  many  measures  for  which  the  Republican  party  is 
responsible — ^the  postal  savings  banks,  the  parcels  post,  the  cor- 
poration tax,  the  maximum  and  minimum  clause  of  the  tariff, 
free  trade  with  the  Philippines,  the  successful  administration  of 
colonial  governments,  the  negotiation  of  the  Japanese  and  other 
treaties,  the  satisfactory  solution  of  the  question  of  immigration 
— all  have  claimed  the  attention  of  the  party  and  of  those  of  its 
representatives  responsible  in  the  legislature  and  the  executive, 
and  the  obligation  for  action  has  been  felt  and  responded  to. 

I  have  said  this  much  to  show  that  the  Republican  party  since 
its  beginning,  more  than  fifty  years  ago,  has  always  been  a  pro- 
gressive party  and  it  has  always  recognized  its  responsibility  by 
action.  It  has  never  hesitated  to  assume  the  burden  of  new  legis- 
lation to  accomplish  good  results,  and  it  has  never  allowed  its  re- 
spect for  the  constitutional  principles  upon  which  this  Govern- 
ment is  founded  to  interfere  with  remedial  action  and  progressive 
legislation  within  the  limitation  of  those  constitutional  principles 


ADDRESS  OF  PRESIDENT  TAFT  115 

to  make  the  Government  more  useful  to  the  people;  and  as  its 
construction  of  the  powers  of  the  general  government  is  a  more 
liberal  one  than  that  of  its  old-time  opponent,  the  Democratic 
party,  it  may  be  counted  upon  to  respond  much  more  promptly 
to  modern  needs  in  this  regard  than  its  old-time  opponent.  If 
we  have  a  record  in  the  last  ten  years,  and  especially  in  the  last 
three  years,  of  responding  to  popular  needs  by  legislation  specific- 
ally adapted  to  afford  the  proper  remedies,  why  should  we  not  be 
sure  of  winning  a  vote  of  confidence  from  the  people?  It  is  true 
we  were  beaten  in  1910,  but  that  was  by  a  defection  of  Repub- 
licans through  what  I  must  think  was  a  misunderstanding,  but 
not  by  a  change  from  Republicans  to  the  Democratic  party.  Their 
defection  reduced  the  vote  of  the  Republicans  but  did  not  increase 
the  vote  of  the  Democrats,  showing  that  what  they  were  waiting 
for  was  to  give  the  Republican  party  what  they  considered  a 
"locus  poenitentiae"  and  an  opportunity  of  still  proving  the  gen- 
uineness of  its  promises  in  the  platform  of  1908.  That  we  have 
done  so  in  the  last  two  sessions  of  Congress,  and  that  we  are  prof- 
fering definite  results  for  a  return  of  complete  power,  I  think 
everyone  who  has  followed  the  course  of  national  events  will  real- 
ize. We  know  what  we  propose  to  do;  we  offer  a  definite  pro- 
gram; show  definite  results,  and  we  believe  that  these  results  are 
what  the  people  wish.  We  do  not  hesistate  to  ask  for  their  sup- 
port. The  arguments  of  most  Democrats  in  favor  of  a  return  to 
their  party  have  a  general  likeness.  We  have  first  a  general  de- 
nunciation of  conditions,  said  to  be  due  to  the  Republican  party, 
which  every  man  would  deprecate,  but  the  existence  of  which, 
and  the  Republican  party's  responsibility  for  which,  depend 
chiefiy  upon  the  authority  of  the  speaker  alone.  Then  the  state- 
ment of  general  good  results  that  must  be  accomplished  by  fol- 
lowing the  principles  of  the  Democratic  party  and  of  Jackson  and 


116  THE  REPTJBIICAN   CLTTB 

Jefferson,  without  specification  as  to  what  they  are,  and  finally 
a  pressure  for  an  invitation  to  that  party  to  assume  power.  There 
is  nothing  definite  in  what  is  said;  nothing  definite  promised; 
only  general  denunciation  and  general  promises. 

They  speak  of  a  spirit  of  unrest  everywhere.  They  don't  de- 
scribe what  that  unrest  depends  upon,  and  if  they  do,  they  don't 
tell  how  it  is  to  be  remedied  or  what  legislation  will  accomplish  it. 

We  are  going  to  have  a  four  months'  campaign  from  the  mid- 
dle of  June  until  the  first  of  November.  In  that  time  the  people 
will  have  the  right  and  opportunity  to  ask  of  each  party  what 
it  proposes  to  do,  and  it  will  not  be  sufficient  to  answer  that  they 
propose  generally  to  introduce  good  legislation  and  execute  it. 
The  question  is  what  legislation  they  will  enact,  how  are  they 
going  to  formulate  it  and  how  execute  it.  Four  months  will  test 
the  substance  of  the  criticisms  and  of  the  proffers  of  new  policies 
which  are  to  be  offered  by  either  party,  and  it  is  because  of  my 
confidence  that  the  Republican  party  can  point  to  definite  deeds 
already  accomplished,  to  laws  already  on  the  statute  books  and 
being  enforced  and  carried  out  to  a  useful  purpose,  and  to  pro- 
posed statutes  with  a  clear  description  of  the  terms  and  effect  of 
such  statutes  that  I  confidently  rely  upon  an  ultimate  verdict  by 
the  people  in  favor  of  the  old  Republican  party,  the  party  of  Lin- 
coln and  of  Grant,  the  most  progressive  party  in  the  history  of 
this  country  or  any  other  country,  the  party  of  achievement  and 
not  of  broken  promises,  the  party  of  liberal  effective  government 
in  which  far-sighted  economy  is  the  watchword,  without  that 
spasmodic  penuriousness  which  ignores  great  national  needs  on 
the  score  of  political  emergency,  the  party  that  stands  by  the 
fundamental  principles  of  free  and  well-ordered  government,  pre- 
serving the  rights  and  equality  of  opportunity  of  the  individual, 
and  not  interfering  with  the  only  steady  practical  progress  that 
is  possible. 


THE   TWENTY-SEVENTH 

ANNUAL   LINCOLN   DINNER 

of  the 

REPUBLICAN    CLUB 

of  the 

City  of  New  York 

At  the  Waldorf-Astoria 

FEBRUARY  12,  1913 


Addresses  of 


EEV.  DR.  WILLIAM  CARTER,  D.D. 


HON.  J.  VAN   VECHTEN    OLCOTT 


ADDRESS    OF 

HON.  J.  VAN  VECHTEN  OLCOTT 

President  of  the  Club 


The  chair  appreciates  perfectly  that  the  most  important  duty 
he  has  to  do  is  to  present  the  speakers,  but  will  venture  to  tres- 
pass for  a  minute  or  two  to  read  a  letter  which  has  just  been 
received  from  the  President  of  the  United  States,  who  is,  as  most 
of  you  know,  now  in  Philadelphia.  The  Club  tried  to  get  him  to 
come  over  again  to  us,  but  Philadelphia  wanted  him,  too,  and  he 
said  in  view  of  the  fact  he  had  been  with  us  last  year,  and  had 
recently  been  with  most  of  us  on  the  fourth  of  January,  that  his 
duties  were  in  Philadelphia,  but  he  has  asked  me  to  read  to  you 
this  letter: 

*'I  regret  my  inability  to  attend  the  Lincoln  dinner 
of  the  Eepublican  Club  of  the  City  of  New  York  this 
year.  A  prior  promise  takes  me  to  Philadelphia  on  this 
occasion.  I  am  in  full  sympathy  with  your  annual  ob- 
servance of  the  birthday  of  the  great  President,  the 
great  American.  Such  observance  should  mark  Febru- 
ary twelfth  in  every  American  community,  to  stimulate 
the  courage  and  optimism  that  cannot  fail  to  result  from 
a  calm  consideration  of  the  character  of  Lincoln  and  of 
the  great  crisis  through  which  he  carried  his  stricken 
country.  When  we  analyze  the  awful  problems  of  the 
time  in  which  he  lived  and  consider  the  successful  solu- 


120  THE   REPUBLICAN   CLUB 


tion  which  he  brought  about  by  his  God-given  patience, 
his  calm  confidence,  his  all-embracing  charity,  and  his 
wonderful  foresight,  we  ought  to  look  with  renewed 
courage  toward  the  solution  of  the  grave  problems  of 
the  present  day. 

"President  Lincoln  stood  steadfastly  by  the  Constitu- 
tion. He  defended  loyally  and  unswervingly  the  funda- 
mental law  of  the  land.  His  steadfastness  and  loyalty 
brought  triumph  and  national  greatness  out  of  the  dark- 
est period  in  the  history  of  the  country.  Misrepresenta- 
tions and  perversions  of  the  principles  and  of  the  words 
of  Lincoln  cannot  be  too  positively  resented  even  now, 
for  the  lessons  handed  down  to  us  from  Abraham  Lin- 
coln properly  applied  still  solve  the  problems  of  to-day 
and  of  to-morrow  and  make  for  a  greater  and  freer  and 
nobler  America. 

Sincerely  yours, 

"WILLIAM  H.  TAFT." 
When  I  read  that  letter  I  thought  of  it  in  connection  with  this 
menu  of  our  dinner  to-night,  in  the  upper  left-hand  corner  of 
which  is  depicted  the  log  cabin  in  which  Abraham  Lincoln  was 
born,  and  on  the  other  side  the  proposed  memorial  to  be  erected 
in  the  city  of  Washington  to  him,  I  thought  the  simplicity  and 
majesty  were  so  well  combined,  that  majestic  simplicity  which 
characterized  Lincoln;  that  marvelous  calm  in  times  of  stress; 
that  wonderful  majesty  when  all  was  disturbing,  and  so  I  was 
glad  to  have  received  such  a  letter  as  that  from  the  President 
which  said  that  not  too  often  could  men  who  believed  in  the 
Constitution,  who  loved  their  country,  celebrate  the  birthday  of 
Lincoln. 

The  Republican  Club  welcomes  its  guests.  The  Republican 
Club  of  the  City  of  New  York  is  proud  to  remember  that  this 
club  was  the  first  to  have  these  annual  celebrations.     Now,  on 


ADDRESS  OF  HON.  J.  VAN  VECHTEN  OLCOTT  121 

the  twenty-seventh  of  them,  it  is  gratifying  that  no  other  attrac- 
tion can  keep  the  men  who  are  most  determined  to  conserve  the 
government  from  attendance  here — can  prevent  this  dinner's  oc- 
currence, or  cause  their  attendance  where  possibly  some  people 
are  trying  to  claim  for  themselves  the  distinct  political  descent 
from  Lincoln.  Mark  my  words,  there  is  no  one  who  does  not 
depend  upon  the  Constitution  as  the  fundamental  principle  of 
our  government,  who  can  take  upon  himself  such  possession  with- 
out a  bar  sinister  upon  his  escutcheon. 

No  one  was  more  conservative  than  Lincoln.  No  one  more 
absolutely  depended  upon  the  principles  of  the  Constitution.  No 
one  was  more  fearful  of  vsdld  fancies  and  vagaries.  Probably  no 
one  vdll  ever  be  as  great  as  Lincoln,  but  we  can  say  that  the 
present  President  of  the  United  States  has  tried  with  his  utmost 
efforts  to  carry  out  the  ideas  that  were  believed  in  by  the 
founders  of  the  Constitution  and  by  Abraham  Lincoln,  the  anni* 
versary  of  whose  birth  we  celebrate  to-night. 


EEV.  DR.  WILLIAM  CARTER 

Born  in  England,  1868.  Distinguished  Presbyterian 
Clergyman,  located  at  Throop  Avenue  Presbyterian 
Churcli,  Brooklyn. 


ADDRESS   OF 

REV.  DR.  WILLIAM  CARTER 


Mr.  Chairman,  ladies  and  gentlemen:  I  realize  that  I  am  in  a 
somewhat  peculiar  position  here  to-night,  as  my  name  does  not 
appear  upon  the  program  as  one  of  the  speakers  of  the  evening. 
I  have  heard  that  high-balls  taken  before  dinner  give  an  edge 
to  one's  appetite,  but  I  cannot  speak  concerning  the  same,  as, 
being  a  preacher,  I  have  not  had  experience  along  that  line,  but 
I  can  bear  witness  to  this  fact,  that  "low-balls"  have  a  very 
distinct  depression  upon  one's  appetite,  and,  indeed,  take  it  all 
away,  for  while  I  was  sitting  very  calmly  in  the  library  of  the 
Union  league  Club  this  morning,  the  President  of  this  Club 
came  to  me,  and  as  calmly  suggested  that  I  take  the  place  of  the 
Honorable  Mr.  Spooner,  and  make  the  speech  on  Lincoln  here 
to-night. 

I  had  expected  to  come  as  Chaplain  of  the  occasion  and  enjoy 
a  free  dinner;  I  was  looking  forward  to  it  indeed  with  a  great 
deal  of  pleasure,  but  when  this  was  put  before  me  all  thoughts 
of  enjoying  the  dinner  were  absolutely  taken  away,  and  I  had 
to  immediately  get  my  mind  in  motion  to  see  what  I  would  say 
at  the  dinner. 

It  makes  me  think  of  the  story  of  the  darkey.  A  darkey 
preacher  who  was  preaching  on  the  text:  "Ho,  everyone  that 
thirsteth,  come  ye  to  the  waters,  and  he  that  hath  no  money, 


124  THE   REPUBLICAN   CLTJB 

come  ye,  buy  and  eat;  yea,  come  buy  wine  and  milk  without 
money  and  without  price."  And  after  finishing  with  a  very 
earnest  peroration,  he  invited  all  the  darkies  to  come  up,  ''for 
salvation  am  free!"  he  said;  "Salvation  am  free.  Salvation  am 
free !"  and  then  immediately  he  announced,  *'De  bredren  will  now 
pass  t'roo  de  audience  to  take  up  de  collection!"  Someone  in  a 
back  row,  however,  got  up  and  said,  ''Hold  on  there,  Bruder 
Smith,  I  thought  you  said  salvation  am  free  ?  Now  you  are  sayin' 
that  the  bredren  will  pass  troo  de  audience  and  take  up  a  col- 
lection. How  do  you  'splain  dat?"  And  the  preacher  said:  "Jes* 
you  hold  on  a  minit,  Bruder  Jones,  and  I  will  'splain  dat  to  yo* 
satisfaction.  Now,  you'  go  down  hyah  to  de  ribber,  and  de  water 
am  free  ain't  it?"  And  the  man  said,  "Sho,  certainly!"  And 
then  the  preacher  said,  "But  yo'  take  dat  same  water  and  have 
it  piped  up  to  yo'  house,  and  when  it  comes  troo'  yo'  faucet,  de 
water  am  still  free,  but  yo'  got  to  pay  for  the  piping!" 

Well,  now  I  find  I've  got  to  pay  for  the  piping  to-night.  I 
trust,  however,  you  won't  have  to  "pay  the  piper"  afterwards, 
and  I  trust  the  fragmentary  remarks  I  have  tried  to  gather  to- 
gether— as  a  preacher  must  always  be  ready  as  a  minute-man  to 
speak — I  trust  these  fragmentary  remarks  of  mine  may  go  into 
some  homogeneity  and  order,  that  they  may  fix  this  great  char- 
acter upon  the  minds  and  hearts  of  all  of  us  as  we  are  here 
gathered  to-night  to  do  honor  to  Lincoln's  name! 

The  currents  of  history,  like  the  sources  of  our  great  rivers, 
rise  ofttimes  in  obscure  places,  are  small  within  themselves,  and 
gain  their  depth  and  volume  only  from  the  gradual  accretion  of 
other  streams  as  tiny  and  obscure,  which,  flowing  in,  either  near 
the  source  or  far  away,  make  at  last  the  mighty  torrent  that 
rushes  onward  to  the  sea. 

Thus  in  the  year  1619,  three  currents  of  stupendous  history 


ADDRESS  OF  REV.  DR.  WILLIAM  CARTER,  D.D.  125 

took  their  rise  in  things  small  and  insignificant  in  themselves, 
that  were  nevertheless  destined  to  swell  at  last  into  a  mighty 
torrent  that  would  sweep  over  the  whole  of  this  great  continent 
and  over  all  the  world. 

The  first  was  the  arrival  at  Jamestown,  in  the  newly-established 
Colony  of  Virginia,  of  a  Dutch  man-of-war  that,  because  of  stress 
and  need,  was  anxious  to  exchange  or  sell  certain  goods  and  chat- 
tels that  they  had  with  them,  for  supplies  of  food  and  drink,  and, 
the  transaction  being  closed  by  the  Lieutenant-Governor  of  the 
Colony,  was  recorded  by  one  of  the  local  historians  of  that  time 
in  these  significant  words: 

"About  the  last  of  August,  came  in  a  Dutch  Man  of  Warre 
that  sold  us  twenty  negars,"  or  negroes. 

The  second  was  the  first  advancement  of  the  idea  among  the 
Puritan  refugees  at  Leyden  of  setting  sail  for  this  new-found 
land  and  establishing  here  a  place  where  they  might  worship 
God  according  to  the  dictates  of  their  own  consciences,  which  idea 
was  put  into  practical  effect  when  they  landed  on  Plymouth 
Rock,  the  following  year. 

The  third  was  the  birth  in  Norwich,  Norfolk  County,  England, 
in  this  same  year  of  1619,  of  a  boy  named  Samuel  Lincoln,  who 
was  to  become,  in  the  Providence  of  God,  the  great  progenitor  of 
that  mighty  man  whose  birth  we  celebrate  to-day. 

Mark,  now,  how  the  currents  fiow  into  one  another  and  gain 
breadth  and  volume  in  their  onward  flow.  The  Puritan  emigra- 
tion and  settlement  of  New  England  moved  the  lad,  born  the 
year  it  was  first  thought  of,  to  leave  his  native  land  at  the  age 
of  eighteen,  and  settle  at  Salem,  Massachusetts,  in  1637.  The 
slaves  of  Virginia — purchased  by  the  Jamestown  people,  the  year 
Samuel  Lincoln  was  born,  and  the  voyage  of  the  Mayflower 
planned — had  been  repudiated  by  New  England  and   the  new- 


126  THE   REPUBLICAN   CLUB 

found  traffic  confined  to  the  South,  so  that  even  in  those  early 
days,  the  lines  were  sharply  drawn  between  the  North  and  the 
South  on  social,  economic  and  moral  measures,  as  well  as  on 
geographical  divisions. 

Notice  also  the  birthright  that  the  ages  were  preparing  for  the 
future  emancipator  and  martyr  to  the  truth.  Samuel  Lincoln 
in  his  English  home  imbibed  the  principles  of  the  Puritans  from 
all  of  his  environment.  He  left  his  home  because  of  them  and 
settled  in  New  England,  where  he  was  indoctrinated  all  the  more 
with  the  faith  and  hope  and  sturdy  steadfastness  of  the  Pilgrim 
Fathers,  who  endured  so  much  for  consciences'  sake  in  all  those 
trying  times.  The  lines  as  between  slavery  and  freedom  were 
also  being  accentuated  before  this  young  lad's  eyes,  and  thus  as 
far  back  as  1637,  when  Samuel  Lincoln  landed  here — aye,  as  far 
back  as  1619,  when  he  was  born  and  the  first  slaves  sold  in 
Jamestown,  we  can  see  how  history,  destiny  and  highest  Provi- 
dence were  molding  and  fashioning  the  birthright  to  be  be- 
queathed to  that  noble  son  of  Anak,  who  was  to  do  such  wondrous 
things  for  God  and  for  his  fellow  men. 

I  know  that  there  has  been  some  doubt  about  this  early  an- 
cestry, that  Lincoln  himself  could  not  go  back  beyond  his  grand- 
father, who,  he  said,  emigrated  from  Rockingham  County,  Vir- 
ginia, to  Kentucky,  in  1781.  He  does  admit,  however,  that  his 
grandfather's  ancestors  had  moved  to  Virginia  from  Berks  County, 
Pennsylvania,  and  that  there  was  some  claim  of  kin  to  the  New 
England  family  of  the  same  name,  though  he  had  not  followed 
it  to  its  source. 

The  world  was  not  as  interested  in  Abraham  Lincoln  then  as 
now.  There  was  no  biographer,  no  genealogist  to  trace  back  the 
family  most  carefully  to  its  beginnings,  but  since  those  last  ten 
years  of  his  life,  when  his  sun  was  in  the  meridian,  when  his 


ADDRESS  OF  REV.  DR.  WILLIAM  CARTER,  D.D.  127 

name  and  fame  were  national  and  international,  when  every 
move  of  his  was  noted  and  every  cranny  of  his  life  illuminated 
by  the  intensest  public  interest  and  pardonable  curiosity — since 
also  that  last  sad  stroke  that  made  him  a  martyr  to  his  cause  and 
made  his  immortality  all  the  more  glorious  and  assured — investi- 
gators by  scores  and  hundreds  have  pored  over  family  records, 
traced  back  family  histories  and  brought  the  past  so  close  into 
the  present  that  we  can  inquire  minutely,  if  we  will,  into  almost 
the  daily  life  and  history  of  all  that  line  from  Samuel  Lincoln 
in  Norwich  to  Lincoln  the  Emancipator  and  martyr  to  a  holy 
cause,  whose  blessed  memory  we  honor  here  to-night. 

He  had  mixed  up  in  him,  then,  the  Puritan  spirit,  from  his 
English  and  New  England  ancestors,  the  Quaker  blood  froni  his 
Pennsylvania  forebears,  for  history  avers  that  they  were  Quakers, 
and  the  inborn  chivalry  and  courtesy  of  the  South  from  his  Vir- 
ginia and  Kentucky  sires.  Above  all,  he  had  a  blood  inheritance 
of  natural  antipathy  and  spiritual  abhorrence  against  slavery  as 
an  institution  from  the  time  his  Puritan  and  Quaker  ancestors 
had  revolted  from  it  and  his  Virginia  and  Kentucky  father  and 
grandfather  had  seen  it  at  its  best  and  its  worst.  He  was,  in- 
deed, by  birth  and  ancestry,  by  training  and  environment,  all  un- 
consciously prepared  by  all  the  ages  for  his  allotted  task. 

The  rise  of  Lincoln's  destiny,  then,  lay  in  those  three  significant 
events  of  1619 — the  sale  of  the  first  slaves  at  Jamestown,  Vir- 
ginia, the  decision  of  the  Puritans  to  emigrate  to  America,  and 
the  birth  of  Samuel  Lincoln  in  Norwich,  England,  destined  later 
to  migrate  with  the  later  Puritans  and  found  his  house  and  fam- 
ily here,  but  the  flood-tide  of  that  destiny  was  not  reached  until, 
as  a  young  man  of  nineteen,  Abraham  Lincoln  stood  in  the  slave 
market  of  New  Orleans  and  saw  for  the  first  time  human  beings 
sold  like  cattle  to  the  highest  bidder.     Then  it  was  that  the 


128  THE   REPUBLICAN   CLTJB 

streams  of  destiny  reached  their  widest  and  deepest  volume;  then 
it  was  that  the  Puritan  and  Quaker  spirit  rose  to  the  fore;  then 
it  was  that  all  the  chivalry  and  nobler  manhood  of  Virginia  and 
Kentucky  cried  aloud,  as  the  rough  backwoodsman  from  a  Ken- 
tucky log-cabin,  but  from  the  world's  great  heart,  his  soul  in- 
flamed, his  moral  nature  all  aroused,  muttered  through  his 
clenched  teeth,  "If  I  ever  get  a  chance  at  that  thing,  I'll  hit  it 
hard !"  And  he  did !  So  hard,  indeed,  that  the  shackles  fell  from 
over  three  million  human  bondmen,  and  broke  forever  the  power 
that  slavery  had  held  in  this  country  that  we  love  and  honor  and 
revere ! 

For  over  half  a  century  there  has  been  a  continuous  discussion 
as  to  what  really  caused  the  war,  and  many  have  said  repeatedly 
that  slavery  had  nothing  to  do  with  it,  that  it  was  wholly  a 
question  of  State  rights.  This  is  at  once  both  an  affirmation  and 
a  denial  and  is  really  but  a  subterfuge  to  hide  the  moral  issue 
beneath  the  political.  Let  it  be  understood  definitely  by  us  at 
the  outset,  then — not  by  any  dictum  of  mine,  but  by  the  incon- 
trovertible facts  of  history,  that  slavery  was  first,  last,  and  all 
the  time  the  issue  of  all  issues  that  was  at  stake  in  that  awful 
struggle.  State  Rights  of  course  was  in  it,  but,  mark  the  sig- 
nificant fact,  it  was  State  Rights  about  slavery. 

In  1828,  the  question  of  State  Rights  had  been  joined  when 
South  Carolina  questioned  the  rights  of  the  Federal  Government 
to  impose  domestic  duties  for  foreign  importations  upon  them 
that  were  unwelcome  and  oppressive,  but  there  was  no  war! 

In  1830  Webster  made  his  famous  ''Reply  to  Hayne"  on  the 
same  question,  and  Hayne,  representing  South  Carolina,  and 
Webster  representing  the  Federal  Government,  both  said  things 
as  fiery  and  denunciatory  as  were  ever  said  in  the  days  preceding 
'61,  but  there  was  no  war! 


ADDRESS  OF  REV.  DR.  WILLIAM  CARTER,  D.D.  129 

In  1832,  the  State  of  South  Carolina  passed  its  * 'Nullification 
Ordinance,"  declaring  void  certain  acts  of  the  United  States  Con- 
gress, imposing  certain  duties  upon  them  as  a  State,  and  threat- 
ening to  secede  from  the  Union  if  the  duties  were  insisted  upon, 
but — though  Andrew  Jackson  as  President  did  insist,  and  threat- 
ened direst  punishment  if  they  still  rebelled — there  was  no  war! 

State  Rights  alone,  then,  were  not  sufficient  and  never  would 
have  been  sufficient  to  plunge  this  nation  into  fratricidal  strife. 

Mark  now,  however,  the  sequence  of  events  when  a  moral  is- 
sue is  joined  to  this  State  principle,  and  how  quickly  were  then 
released  the  dogs  of  war. 

In  1820,  the  Missouri  Compromise  had  been  passed,  whereby 
slavery  was  "forever  limited" — mark  the  words  "forever  limited" 
— to  all  that  territory  south  of  36  degrees  30  feet,  Missouri  being 
in  general  fixed  at  its  northern  boundary  in  the  West.  In  1854, 
the  Kansas-Nebraska  bill  had  repealed  the  Missouri  Compromise, 
notwithstanding  the  solemn  promise  of  1820,  and  given  permission 
to  these  territories  to  say  whether  they  would  admit  slavery  into 
their  midst  or  not,  and  immediately  the  issue  was  joined,  and 
war  became  inevitable! 

This  set  State  Eights  in  its  entirety  before  the  nation.  State 
Rights  to  go  back  on  its  word!  State  Rights  to  repeal  a  most 
solemn  promise  that  had  been  effected  as  a  compromise  between 
discordant  elements,  thirty-four  years  before!  State  Rights  to 
decide  a  moral  issue,  no  matter  how  it  would  affect  the  States 
about  it!  This  is  not  politics,  now  remember.  This  is  morals, 
and  the  moral  issue  being  thus  joined,  there  was  no  doubt  in 
men's  minds  as  to  what  the  natural  outcome  must  of  necessity  be. 

In  1857,  Abraham  Lincoln,  standing  in  the  old  Court  House  at 
Peoria,  Illinois,  said  with  a  peculiar  and  a  solemn  emphasis: 
"Slavery  is  founded  in  the  selfishness  of  man's  nature,  opposition 


130  THE   REPUBLICAN   CLUB 

to  it,  in  the  love  of  justice.  These  two  principles  are  in  eternal 
antagonism  and,  when  brought  into  collision,  shocks  and  throes 
and  convulsions  must  follow  ceaselessly.  Repeal  the  Missouri 
Compromise !  Repeal  all  compromises !  Repeal  the  Declaration  of 
Independence!  Repeal  all  past  history!  You  cannot  repeal  hu- 
man nature!  It  will  still  be  held  in  the  abundance  of  man's 
heart,  that  slavery  is  wrong,  and  out  of  the  abundance  of  his 
heart  he  will  continue  to  speak!" 

Aye,  they  would  "still  continue  to  speak,"  not  only  because 
their  hearts  were  full  then,  but  because  they  had  always  been 
full  against  this  horrid  system.  Of  the  five  framers  of  the  Dec- 
laration of  Independence  in  1776,  there  was  only  one  who  had 
not  definitely  declared  against  slavery,  and  that  was  Chancellor 
Livingstone,  and  of  his  attitude  later,  there  was  little  doubts 
Thomas  Jefferson,  the  writer  of  that  immortal  document,  declared 
in  solemn  words  that  when  contemplating  slavery,  "he  trembled 
for  his  country  when  he  remembered  that  God  was  just!'  John 
Adams  declared,  time  after  time,  his  abhorrence  of  the  whole 
system,  and  said:  "Every  measure  of  prudence  ought  to  be  as- 
sumed for  the  eventual  total  extirpation  of  slavery  from  the 
United  States."  Roger  Sherman,  the  fourth  of  the  framers,  three 
years  before  the  adoption  of  the  Constitution,  or  in  1784,  voted 
for  the  first  prohibitory  bill  against  slavery  ever  introduced  into 
the  United  States  Congress,  or  the  Congress  of  the  Confederation, 
as  it  was  then  called,  while  Benjamin  Franklin,  the  last  but  by 
no  means  the  least  of  the  signers  of  that  famous  document,  was 
President  of  the  first  Abolition  Society  ever  founded  in  America. 

In  1787,  when  the  Constitution  was  finally  adopted,  of  the 
thirty-nine  framers  of  that  great  instrument,  twenty-one  of  the 
thirty-nine  definitely  put  themselves  on  record  by  their  votes  in 
Congress  from  time  to  time  as  being  either  opposed  to  slavery 


ADDRESS  OF  REV.  DR.  WILLIAM  CARTER,  D.D.  131 

without  qualification,  or,  granting  the  permission  of  it  under 
stress,  declared  that  it  should  be  entirely  in  the  hands  of  the 
Federal  Government  rather  than  that  of  the  States  or  Territories 
— taking  clear  and  definite  issue  with  the  question  of  State  Rights, 
as  it  was  then  first  advanced,  while  only  two  of  all  the  thirty-nine 
ever  voted  in  favor  of  State  Rights  or  slavery  in  any  way. 

The  sixteen  who  did  not  go  on  record  by  their  votes  did  not 
evade  the  subject,  but  for  various  reasons  were  either  not  pres- 
ent or  not  recorded  in  the  voting,  for  among  these  sixteen  were 
such  noted  Abolitionists  or  anti-slavery  men  as  Benjamin  Frank- 
lin, Gouverneur  Morris  and  Alexander  Hamilton,  while  not  one 
of  the  sixteen  was  ever  known  to  be  in  favor  of  slavery,  unless 
we  perhaps  except  John  Rutledge  of  South  Carolina.  At  the 
convention  in  Philadelphia,  indeed,  where  the  Constitution  was 
finally  adopted,  had  it  not  been  for  South  Carolina  and  Georgia 
the  question  of  slavery  would  have  been  settled  for  all  time,  by 
a  definite  article  against  it  in  that  instrument.  South  Carolina 
and  Georgia,  however,  insisted  upon  its  recognition,  as  the  final 
condition  of  their  joining  the  Union,  but  the  words  ''slave"  and 
"slavery"  were  definitely  excluded  from  the  Constitution,  ''be- 
cause," as  Madison  significantly  puts  it,  "they  did  not  choose  to 
admit  the  right  of  property  in  man!" 

Washington  was  opposed  to  it,  and  provided  for  the  emancipa- 
tion of  his  own  slaves  in  his  will,  and  to  Jefferson  he  said,  time 
after  time,  it  was  "among  his  first  wishes  to  see  some  plan 
adopted  by  which  slavery  in  this  country  might  be  abolished  by 
law!" 

Denmark  had  abolished  it  in  1792,  England  in  1811,  as  far  as 
Africa  was  concerned;  France  in  1815,  owing  to  the  efforts  of 
that  noblest  type  of  Africa's  blood,  Toussaint  L'Ouverture  of  San 
Domingo  fame,  and  England  finally  abolished  it  for  all  her  col- 


182  THE   REPXTBLICAN   CLUB 

onies  in  1833  through  the  lifetime  zeal  of  William  Wilber force, 
one  of  nature's  gpreatest  noblemen.  Russia,  even — despotic  Eussia 
— ^had  freed  her  serfs  in  this  same  fateful  year  of  1861.  Why  not 
liberty-loving,  free  America?  If  these  nations  were  thus  doing 
it,  why  not  we  ?  We  were  the  last  of  all  the  great  powers  of  the 
world  to  keep  this  canker-worm  within  the  body  politic  and  let 
it  eat  away  our  manhood  and  our  pride.  Why  not  we  also  cut 
away  the  ulcerous,  leprous  sore  and  rid  ourselves  of  this  foul 
thing  that  was  rotting  in  our  system  and  dragging  us  down  to 
judgment  and  to  death? 

Ay,  why  not  we?  That  was  the  query  through  all  those 
weary  years — Why  not  we?  William  Lloyd  Garrison  asked  it  in 
the  *^Liberator'*  from  1831  until  the  fact  was  finally  accomplished 
and  they  called  him  an  erratic  and  a  crank.  Elijah  P.  Love  joy 
asked  it  in  Alton,  Illinois,  in  1837,  and  a  pro-slavery  mob 
brutally  killed  him  for  his  courage  and  persistence.  Wendell 
Phillips  asked  it  in  Faneuil  Hall  in  that  same  year,  and  they 
tried  to  jeer  and  hoot  him  down.  Harriet  Beecher  Stowe  asked 
it  in  1852  in  her  "Uncle  Tom's  Cabin,''  and  she  was  called  a 
stirrer  up  of  sedition  and  a  revolutionist  of  the  most  obnoxious 
type.  Charles  Sumner  asked  it  in  1856  even  in  the  Senate,  and 
Preston  Brooks  of  the  "chivalrous  South" — that  for  the  moment, 
however,  forgot  her  chivalry — beat  him  like  a  bully  in  the  very 
Senate  chamber  and  left  him  there  half  dead.  Erratic,  mis- 
guided, impulsive  old  John  Brown  asked  it  at  Ossawattomie  in 
that  year  also,  and  stopped  the  slave-holding  raiders  of  Missouri 
from  bringing  their  human  chattels  into  the  place  of  his  abode. 
He  asked  it  again  at  Harper's  Ferry  in  1859,  in  a  more  insistent, 
arbitrary,  and  let  us  all  admit,  lawless  way,  and  they  hanged 
Mm  for  his  insolence  and  insistence. 

Yes,  law-breaker,  zealot,  blind  fool,  if  you  will,  but  rugged  old 


ADDRESS  OF  REV.  DR.  WILLIAM  CARTER,  D.D.  133 

John  Brown  was  following  a  true  principle,  though  in  a  wrong 
and  lawless  way.  He  believed  with  the  Declaration  of  Inde- 
pendence that  all  men  were  created  "equal,"  that  among  the  in- 
alienable rights  of  man  were  ''life,  liberty  and  the  pursuit  of 
happiness."  He  knew  that  the  slave  had  neither  liberty,  equality 
nor  happiness.  He  longed  to  give  them  to  him,  by  lawful  means 
if  possible,  but,  since  he  had  waited  so  long  and  they  would  not 
use  the  lawful  means,  he  then  resolved  to  use  the  unlawful,  and, 
failing  there,  they  hanged  the  hot-headed,  misguided,  flaming- 
souled  patriot,  but  the  nation  that  gathered  'round  his  grave, 
though  it  condemned  not  Virginia  for  doing  it,  nevertheless,  put 
a  new  song  in  its  psalmody  as  from  East  to  West  and  North  to 
Southern  Mason  and  Dixon's  line,  the  schoolboys  and  the  men, 
the  farmers  and  the  factory  hands,  the  merchants  and  mechanics 
— the  bone  and  sinew  of  this  great  republic  began  singing  in  a 
mighty  diapason  that  reached  all  'round  the  world: 

"John  Brown's  body  lies  a  moldering  in  the  grave, 
But  his  soul  goes  marching  on!" 

Yes,  Lincoln,  mighty  prophet  of  those  troublous  times  said: 
"It  will  still  be  held  in  the  abundance  of  man's  heart  that  slavery 
is  wrong,  and  out  of  the  abundance  of  his  heart  he  will  still  con- 
tinue to  speak." 

Speech,  however,  is  not  sufficient  for  all  things,  and  it  was  not 
sufficient  for  such  things  as  these: 

"We  live  in  deeds,  not  years,  in  thoughts,  not  breaths. 
In  feelings,  not  in  figures  on  a  dial! 
We  should  count  time  by  heart  throbs.    He  most  lives 
Who  thinks  most,  feels  the  noblest,  acts  the  best!" 

Actions  were  what  were  necessary  now.  In  1858,  at  Spring- 
field, Illinois,  while  accepting  the  nomination  of  his  party  for 


134  THE  EEPUBLICAN   CLUB 

Senator  and  preparing  to  go  forth  to  battle  against  Douglas  to 
win  the  majority  in  the  State  Legislature,  Lincoln  fearlessly  said; 
"A  house  divided  against  itself  cannot  stand!  I  believe  this  gov- 
ernment cannot  permanently  endure,  half  slave  and  half  free.  I 
do  not  expect  the  Union  to  be  dissolved,  I  do  not  expect  the  house 
to  fall,  but  I  do  expect  it  will  cease  to  be  divided.  It  will  become 
all  one  thing  or  all  the  other!" 

This  was  meeting  the  issue  squarely  and  without  equivocation. 
Its  meaning  could  not  be  misunderstood.  It  was  virtually  a  chal- 
lenge to  those  who  felt  with  him  to  come  out  and  declare  them- 
selves and  a  gage  of  battle  to  his  enemies  to  be  picked  up  if  they 
listed.  It  lost  him  the  Senatorship,  but  it  gained  him  the  Presi- 
dency two  years  later.  It  was  a  handle  on  which  Douglas  laid 
hold  to  warn  his  constituents  in  Illinois  against  such  "revolu- 
tionary ideas,"  as  he  called  them,  but  it  stirred  the  sober,  second 
thought  among  the  people  of  this  great  land  and  the  general 
opinion  in  that  second  thought  was  that  "Old  Abe  was  right!" 

The  East  became  curious  to  see  and  hear  this  marvelous  back- 
woodsman. New  York  invited  him  to  come  and  deliver  an  ad- 
dress, and  in  that  speech  in  Cooper  Union,  February  27,  1860, — 
the  most  logical,  powerful  and  convincing  speech  that  I  have 
ever  read— Abraham  Lincoln  virtually  captured  the  Presidency, 
or  rather,  insured  what  had  already  been  captured  by  his  "House- 
divided-against-itself"  speech  in  1858. 

New  York  was  satisfied  with  him.  Then  Connecticut  wanted  to 
hear  him,  and  so  New  Haven's  classic  crowd  sat  at  the  feet  of 
this  gaunt,  ungainly  philosopher  of  the  West,  and  applauded  all 
his  reasoning.  Then  Meriden,  Norwich,  and  Bridgeport  desired 
him,  and  in  all  these  places  Connecticut  was  ready  not  only  to 
applaud  to  the  echo,  but  to  subscribe  her  name  also  to  the  new 
philosophy  of  this  strange,  plain,  earnest  man  whose  lot  it  was 


ADDRESS  OF  REV.  DR.  WILLIAM  CARTER,  D.D.  135 

to  shoulder  the  burden  of  a  nation  and  bear  unflinchingly  within 
himself  its  hardships  and  its  dangers  for  the  public  weal. 

So  was  it  in  Rhode  Island,  so  was  it  everywhere  upon  this 
Eastern  trip,  and  when  in  May  of  that  same  year  the  new-formed 
party  met,  which  had  for  its  object  the  settling  of  this  great 
problem  and  national  disgrace,  Abraham  Lincoln  was  overwhelm- 
ingly the  choice  for  Presidential  leader,  and  New  York,  in  the 
person  of  William  M.  Evarts,  was  the  one  that  finally  moved  that 
that  choice  be  made  unanimous,  which  was  carried  amid  great 
enthusiasm. 

The  challenge  then  had  been  accepted  by  his  friends.  It  re- 
mained now  to  be  seen  whether  the  gage  would  be  taken  up  by 
his  enemies  and  the  enemies  of  the  Union. 

The  election  came  November  sixth.  The  results  were  most 
definite  and  conclusive.  Lincoln  received  not  only  the  electoral 
vote,  which  was  more  than  twice  that  of  Breckenridge,  his  near- 
est competitor,  with  Douglas,  his  old-time  rival,  last  of  all,  but 
he  received  also  the  popular  vote  which  placed  him  far  above 
them  all  and  left  no  doubt  in  the  minds  of  the  people  both  North 
and  South  as  to  what  the  desire  of  the  nation  really  was. 

That  settled  it.  The  die  was  cast.  The  Rubicon  was  crossed. 
The  South  had  read  the  handwriting  on  the  wall,  and  imme- 
diately took  up  the  gage  of  battle.  As  soon  as  the  result  of  the 
election  was  announced.  South  Carolina  immediately  withdrew 
from  the  Union,  and  her  Senators  presented  their  resignations. 
When  Congress  assembled,  December  third.  South  Carolina  did 
not  respond  to  the  roll-call.  Her  place  was  empty,  as  she  sat  at 
home,  like  Achilles  sulking  in  his  tent.  Then  Georgia,  Alabama, 
Mississippi,  Florida,  Louisiana,  and  Texas  rapidly  followed.  They 
seized  all  forts  and  arsenals  within  their  midst,  and  Fort  Sumter 
resisting,  it  was  besieged  as  early  as  January,  1861,  and  defended 


136  THE   REPUBLICAN   CLTJB 

until  April  13th,  most  nobly  by  its  commander,  Major  Anderson. 

They  were  still  waiting  for  the  master  mind.  The  mine  had 
been  prepared,  the  powder  laid,  the  percussion  cap  set,  but  the 
signal  to  fire  the  mine  was  not  given  until  after  March  4th,  when 
Lincoln  was  inducted  into  office  and  gave  his  first  inaugural.  It 
was  for  this  they  waited.  What  would  this  man  say?  How 
would  he  look  upon  their  acts  thus  far?  What  decision  would 
he  make  as  to  the  future?  These  were  their  questions  and  they 
were  all  answered  as  he  stood  before  that  assembled  multitude 
and  said,  that  day,  decisively:  "No  State  upon  its  own  mere 
motion  can  lawfully  get  out  of  the  Union  *  *  *  acts  of  vio- 
lence within  any  State,  or  States,  against  the  authority  of  the 
United  States,  are  insurrectionary  or  revolutionary,  according  to 
circumstances.  *  *  *  Xo  the  extent  of  my  ability,  I  shall 
take  care,  as  the  Constitution  expressly  enjoins  upon  me,  that 
the  laws  of  the  Union  be  faithfully  executed  in  all  the  States." 

There  was  no  mistaking  this  language,  and  yet  it  was  not 
said  as  a  dictator  or  tyrant,  but  as  a  man  who  loved  his  country 
as  a  whole  better  than  any  one  part  of  it — as  a  loyal,  patriotic 
man  to  others  he  wished  to  remain  loyal  and  patriotic.  *'We 
are  not  enemies,  but  friends,"  he  said,  in  closing;  "we  must  not 
be  enemies.  Though  passion  may  have  strained,  it  must  not 
break  our  bonds  of  affection.  The  mystic  chords  of  memory 
stretching  from  every  battlefield  and  patriot  grave  to  every  lov- 
ing heart  and  hearth-stone  all  over  this  broad  land,  will  yet  swell 
the  chorus  of  the  Union,  when  again  touched,  as  surely  they  will 
be,  by  the  better  angels  of  our  nature." 

Yes,  Lincoln,  prophet,  seer  and  optimist,  thy  words  shall,  in- 
deed, at  last  prove  true — but  first  must  come  Sumter  and  Gettys- 
burg, Lookout  Mountain,  Vicksburg  and  New  Orleans,  the  Battle 
of  the  Wilderness,  the  fall  of  Richmond,  and  the  last  great  chap- 


ADDRESS  OF  REV.  DR.  WILLIAM  CARTER,  D.D.  137 

ter  at  Appomattox  Court  House,  after  four  weary,  wearing,  bloody 
years  have  passed  away! 

They  listened  not  to  his  tender  appeal  to  their  better  natm-es. 
Their  worst  was  rampant  then.  Sumter  was  vindictively  beset 
again.  She  fell  and  not  till  then  did  this  gaunt,  lonely,  loving- 
hearted  man  take  drastic  action.  In  his  inaugural  he  had  said: 
"There  needs  to  be  no  bloodshed  or  violence;  and  there  shall  be 
none  unless  it  is  forced  upon  the  national  authority."  The  mat- 
ter had  now  been  forced  upon  him,  however,  and  most  quickly  did 
he  act.  Sumter  fell  April  13th.  On  April  16th,  Lincoln  sent  out 
his  call  for  seventy-five  thousand  men,  and  from  Mexico  to  Cali- 
fornia, from  San  Diego  to  Sandy  Hook,  the  loyal,  patriotic  souls 
responded  and  furnished  him  far  more  than  he  had  asked.  Bull 
Eun  with  its  defeat  and  panic  came  in  July,  and  would  have 
daunted  any  less  heroic  soul  than  his.  He  never  jBUnched!  He 
knew  now  that  heroic  measures  were  necessary.  He  sent  out  a 
call,  not  for  seventy-five  thousand  men  for  three  months,  as  the 
first  had  been,  but  one  for  a  hundred  thousand  men  for  three 
years,  and  then  there  came  a  cry  from  the  hills  and  valleys,  the 
mountains  and  the  plains,  all  over  this  broad  land: 

**We  are  coming,  Father  Abraham, 
A  hundred  thousand  strong!'* 

Why  the  readiness?  Why  the  willingness?  Why  the  enthus- 
iasm of  those  times?  Because  they  realized  with  Lincoln  that 
slavery  was  wrong,  ''that  man,  whatever  his  color,  creed,  or  pre- 
vious condition  of  servitude,  was  entitled  to  life  and  liberty  as 
well  as  the  pursuit  and  blessings  of  happiness,"  that  "God  hath 
made  of  one  blood  all  nations  of  men  for  to  dwell  on  all  the  face 
of  the  earth!" 


138  THE   REPUBLICAN   CLTJB 

'   "For  mankind  is  one  in  spirit  and  an  instinct  bears 

along 
'Round  the  earth's  electric  circle  the  swift  flash  of  right 

or  wrong, 
Whether  conscious  or  unconscious,  yet  humanity's  vast 

frame 
Through  its  ocean  sundered  fibres  feels  the  flush  of  joy 

or  shame; 
In  the  gain  or  loss  of  one  race  all  the  rest  have  equal 

claim!" 

It  was  the  same  spirit  then  that  moved  Lincoln  that  now  was 
moving  them.  He  had,  indeed,  infused  his  spirit  into  the  nation. 
They  were  all  beginning  to  realize,  as  never  before,  the  brother- 
liood  of  man,  the  solidarity  of  the  race,  the  rights  of  all  to  lib- 
erty and  equality  before  the  law.  They  knew  that  to  enforce 
this  principle,  after  two  hundred  and  forty  years  of  opposition 
to  it  in  the  land  they  loved,  would  take  zeal  and  faith  and 
patience  as  well  as  courage  and  determination.  Yet  they  flinched 
not,  as  he  flinched  not,  but  rallied  with  enthusiasm  for  a  three- 
years'  service,  not  only  a  hundred  thousand  strong,  but  what 
proved  afterwards  a  vast  host  of  almost  a  million  men,  determined 
to  do  and  dare  and  die  for  the  great  principle  of  human  freedom! 

Yes,  it  took  faith  and  courage  on  their  part,  but  think  of  the 
faith  and  courage  it  took  on  the  part  of  this  man  on  whom  the 
final  responsibility  rested!  He  could  never  have  done  it  in  his 
own  strength.  He  was  not,  indeed,  relying  on  it,  but  only  on 
the  strength  of  God! 

General  Sickles- tells  us  that  after  he  was  wounded  at  Gettys- 
burg he  was  taken  to  Washington,  where  Lincoln  immediately 
visited  him  in  the  hospital,  and  while  there,  Sickles  asked  him 
what  he  thought  of  the  victory  at  Gettysburg,  and  what  he  had 
been  doing  or  preparing  to  do  during  that  awful  battle,  and 


ADDRESS  OF  REV.  DR.  WILLIAM  CARTER,  D.D.  139 

Lincoln  replied:  *'Well,  Sickles,  if  you  want  to  know  what  I 
was  doing  about  that  time,  I  will  tell  you.  There  is  one  room  in 
the  White  House  where  there  is  very  little  furniture,  and  I  went 
in  there  and  shut  the  door  and  got  down  on  my  knees,  and  said 
to  the  Lord:  'You  know.  Lord,  I  have  done  all  I  can.  This  is 
your  struggle.  Lord.  I've  done  all  I  can!'  And  then  I  cried  out 
with  all  my  heart:  *0h,  God,  give  us  the  victory!'  Then  suddenly 
it  occurred  to  me  to  say:  'Oh,  that  I  might  have  some  token  by 
which  I  could  be  assured  of  a  victory'  Then  such  a  sweet  spirit 
came  over  me,  such  an  indescribable  spirit,  that  I  was  assured 
of  a  victory  before  I  even  heard  the  news!" 

And  yet  this  man  is  said  to  have  been  irreligious,  is  said  to 
have  been  anything  but  a  Christian!  Well,  all  I  have  to  say  is 
to  reply  as  he  replied  when  they  were  falsely  accusing  Grant  of 
drinking  whiskey,  "I  wish  we  had  more  of  the  same  brand!" 
Ah,  that  there  were  more  Christians  like  him!  More  with  the 
same  faith  and  trust  in  God  in  time  of  trial  and  of  danger! 
He  ''cried  unto  God  in  the  battle  and  He  was  entreated  of  him 
because  he  put  his  trust  in  Him."  It  was  God  who  gave  him 
the  victory,  not  only  at  Gettysburg,  but  at  Vicksburg,  Chatta- 
nooga, Lookout  Mountain  and  Missionary  Ridge,  at  Fort  Donel- 
son,  Fair  Oaks  and  Richmond,  until  on  April  9,  1865,  at  Appo- 
mattox Court  House,  the  God  of  Battles  gave  him  the  final  vic- 
tory as  Lee  surrendered  and  peace  cemented  still  more  closely  the 
bonds  of  an  indissoluble  and  glorious  Union. 

Many  there  were  assisting  him;  nor  would  I  withhold  in  any 
wise  the  meed  of  praise  their  great  deeds  merit,  but,  remember, 
it  was  God  and  Lincoln  who  gained  the  final  victory,  through 
their  arms. 

There  was  Grant,  that  man  of  noble  name  and  immortal  mem- 
ory!   Sherman,  that  intrepid,  fearless  soldier  and  leader  of  men! 


140  THE   REPUBLICAN   CLUB 

Sheridan,  that  dashing,  brave  and  loyal  leader  who  could  infuse 
whole  regiments  with  his  marvelous  spirit,  and  many  others  of 
like  power  and  prominence.  Let  us  not  forget,  however,  the 
man  in  the  ranks,  the  man  that  carried  the  gun,  the  men  that 
came  from  the  farm  and  forge  and  factory,  from  the  shop  and 
store  and  office,  the  men  of  "the  rank  and  file,'*  for  these  were 
the  men  upon  whom  God  and  Lincoln  depended — these  were  the 
men  who  saved  the  nation  with  their  blood. 

"Soldiers  pass  on  from  this  rage  for  renown. 

This  ant  hill  commotion  and  strife. 
Pass  by  where  the  bronzes  and  marble  look  down 

With  their  fast  frozen  gestures  of  life; 
On,  out  to  the  nameless,  who  lie  'mid  the  gloom 

Of  the  echoing  cypress  and  pine, 
Your  man  is  the  man  of  the  sword  and  the  plume, 

But  the  man  of  the  musket  is  mine! 

"I  knew  him,  by  all  that  is  noble  I  knew, 

This  commonplace  hero  I  name; 
I've  marched  with  him,  camped  with  him,  fought 
with  him,  too, 
In  the  swirl  of  the  fierce  battle  flame; 
Laughed  with  him,  cried  with  him,  taken  a  part 

Of  his  canteen  and  blanket  and  known 
That  each  heart  throb  of  this  chivalrous  prairie 
boy's  heart 
Was  an  answering  stroke  of  my  own! 

"I  knew  him.     All  through  him  the  good  and  the 
bad 
Ran  together  and  equally  free. 
And  I  judge,  as  I  trust  Christ  will  judge  the  brave 
lad, 
For  death  made  him  noble  to  me. 


ADDRESS  OF  REV.  DR.  WILLIAM  CARTER,  D.D.  141 

In  the  cyclone  of  war,  in  the  battle's  eclipse, 

Life  shook  out  its  lingering  sands, 
And  he  died  with  the  names  that  he  loved  on  his 
lips, 
His  musket  still  grasped  in  his  hands. 
Up  close  to  the  flag  my  hero  went  down, 

In  the  salient  front  of  the  line. 
You  may  talk  as  you  will  of  the  men  of  renown, 
But  the  man  of  the  musket  is  mine!'* 
Yes,  these  were  the  men  that  Lincoln  so  ably  used,  who  re- 
sponded so  nobly  to  his  call.    He  had  not  temporized,  remember. 
He  had  not  won  the  victory  through  yielding  in  any  jot  his 
principles.     He  had  not  sought  in  any  way  to  hide  those  prin- 
ciples.     He    stood    for   liberty    and    human    equality.      He    in- 
sisted that  now  slavery  was  a  greater  question  than  State  Eights, 
as  the  former  had  been  the  bone  of  contention  that  had  brought 
the  latter  to  the  front.    He  stood  unswervingly  for  its  abolition, 
and  yet  in  it  he  wished  to  be  fair  and  just  to  all. 

In  March,  1862,  he  sent  a  special  message  to  Congress,  recom- 
mending the  passage  of  a  resolution  offering  pecuniary  aid  to 
those  States  that  would  adopt  even  a  gradual  abolition  of  slavery, 
but  the  Act,  though  passed,  was  utterly  ignored  by  the  South.  In 
April  of  the  same  year,  he  signed  a  bill  emancipating  all  the 
slaves  of  the  District  of  Columbia,  but  with  financial  compensa- 
tion to  the  owners.  On  July  12th  of  this  year,  also,  he  called 
the  representatives  of  the  border  slave  States  to  the  executive 
mansion  and  again  proposed  financial  compensation  if  they  would 
consent  to  emancipate  their  slaves  themselves,  but  all  to  no  avail. 
Then,  and  not  till  then,  did  he  take  the  final  step — after  he 
found  they  would  not  listen  to  his  pleas,  and  refused  his  offers 
of  compensation,  if  they  would  liberate  of  themselves  their  slaves 
— then  came  the  climax  when  on  January  1,  1863,  he  issued  his 


142  THE   AEPUBLICAN   CLUB 

immortal  Emancipation  Proclamation,  declaring  that  "all  per- 
sons held  as  slaves  within  said  designated  States  are  and  hence- 
forward shall  be  free!" 

No  wonder  that  the  world  applauded  as  it  did.  No  wonder 
that  he  was  heralded  as  the  great  emancipator!  All  the  world 
loves  liberty!  All  the  world  is  ever  ready  to  applaud  any  man 
who  tries  to  give  it  to  the  oppressed. 

"When  a  deed  is  done  for  freedom,  through  the  broad 

earth's  aching  breast. 
Runs  a  thrill  of  joy  prophetic  traveling  on  from  East 

to  West, 
And  the  slave,  where  e'er  he  cowers,  feels  the  soul  with- 
in him  climb 
To  the  awful  verge  of  manhood,  as  the  energy  sub- 
lime 
Of  a  century  bursts  full-blossomed  on  the  thorny  stem 
of  time!" 
Ay,  it  was  the  energy  not  of  one  century  alone,  but  of  two 
centuries  and  more!    It  was  all  the  energy  that  had  been  stored 
up  since  that  first  slave  sale  in  Jamestown  in  1619,  when  liberty- 
loving  Americans  felt  they  should  be  forever  free.     It  was  for 
this  they  fought.     On  this  issue  the  battle  had  been  joined  and 
the  strife  continued  throughout  four  bloody  years,  and  at  Appo- 
mattox the  South  yielded  under  force  of  arms  what  had  been 
offered  them  in  peace  and  brotherly  forbearance,  and  slavery  was 
forever  banished  from  our  midst! 

One  man  labors,  however,  and  another  enters  into  the  fruits 
of  his  labor.  Even  in  the  very  hour  of  triumph,  the  man  who 
had  brought  it  all  about  was  stricken  down  by  an  assassin's  bul- 
let, and  on  April  15th,  just  six  days  after  Lee's  surrender,  the 
spirit  of  this  heroic  soul  went  out  in  silence  and  in  darkness  up 
to  God. 


ADDRESS  OF  REV.  DR.  WILLIAM  CARTER,  D.D.  143 

I  say  in  silence,  sir,  because  to  him  was  permitted  no  last  fare- 
well to  sorrowing  loved  ones,  no  parting  benediction  on  the  cause 
he  loved  so  well.  I  say  in  darkness,  because  the  night  had  come 
for  us  through  which  we  could  not  even  see  the  stars  because  of 
the  bitter  tears  that  blurred  our  vision. 

It  was  hard  and  bitter  that  the  end  should  come  thus  and  yet 
it  was  the  crowning  glory  of  a  glorious  life.  A  martyr's  death 
made  his  immortality  more  definite,  more  glorious  and  assured. 
It  invested  his  memory  with  a  tenderness,  a  sacredness  that 
otherwise  might  be  wanting  with  the  many.  It  made  his  enemies, 
even,  take  the  second  thought,  and  in  that  second  thought,  there 
was  given  to  them  a  glance  of  that  noble,  self-sacrificing  and 
humane  spirit  that  drew  even  them  at  last  in  friendship  unto  him 
and  his  ideals.  It  invested  liberty  with  a  new  meaning,  freedom 
with  a  deeper  significance,  and  the  flag  with  a  greater  sacred- 
ness, not  only  for  ourselves,  but  for  all  the  world.  The  world 
had  sneered  somewhat  at  our  pretensions  to  military  greatness, 
had  pointed  with  such  pride  to  their  own  legions,  their  own 
achievements  and  their  own  battle-scarred  flags  that  ours  was 
largely  forgotten,  but  after  Gettysburg,  Vicksburg,  Kichmond 
and  Appomattox,  we  made  them  think  of  it  and  of  all  it  meant, 
not  only  to  this  country,  but  to  all  the  world! 

''Boast  of  your  war-trained  captains,  Kaiser,  Emperor, 

Czar, 
Prate  of  your  serried  warrior  host  and  babble  of  might 

afar; 
Point  to  your  brilliant  banners  that  follow  the  car  of 

Mars, 
But,  pray  that  they  never  meet  in  strife  the  flag  of 

the  Stripes  and  Stars! 


144  THE   REPUBLICAN   CLUB 

*Tlag  of  the  freezing  army  that  famished  in  Valley 

Forge, 
Flag  that  a  viking  flung  aloft  and  hnmbled  the  Cross 

of  George; 
Flag  that  was  torn  by   statesmen,   now  mended  nor 

shows  the  scars, 
Flag  of  the  nation,  hail,  all  hail,  the  flag  of  the  Stripes 

and  Stars!" 

This  was  the  work  which  Lincoln  did.  He  loved  the  flag,  he 
made  others  either  love  or  respect  it,  and  though  he  died  to  do  it, 
the  sacrifice  was  well  worth  while  and  gave  him  a  place  in  the 
world's  great  heart  that  time  cannot  move  or  misplace. 

Secretary  Stanton,  sitting  at  his  bedside  as  he  breathed  his 
last,  said  with  a  catch  in  his  voice,  but  with  solemn  and  prophetic 
utterance:  "Now  he  belongs  to  the  ages!" 

Yes,  "Now  he  belongs  to  the  ages!"  The  South  joins  in  his 
praise  as  well  as  the  North.  A  re-united  and  harmonious  country 
loves  to-day  to  do  him  honor! 

"Now  he  belongs  to  the  ages!"  America  cannot  claim  him 
as  theirs  alone.  He  fought  for  a  universal  principle  that  makes 
the  whole  world  kin,  and  in  every  land  throughout  the  world  his 
name  is  honored  and  revered! 

Now  he  belongs  to  the  ages!  Yes,  not  only  in  this  land  for 
which  he  died,  have  marbles  and  bronzes  been  erected  in  his 
memory  that  to-day  will  be  crowned  with  flowers,  but  far  across 
the  sea  these  mute  memorials  to  his  name  also  stand  to  testify 
to  the  love  and  gratitude  of  the  world  for  this  noble-hearted 
man. 

Yes,  "Now  he  belongs  to  the  ages !"  Throughout  all  the  world 
to-day,  men  are  remembering  him,  not  because  of  these  visible 
tokens  only,  but  because  of  the  monuments  of  love  and  gratitude 


ADDRESS  OF  REV.  DR.  WILLIAM  CARTER,  D.D.  145 

more  enduring  far  than  those  of  bronze  or  marble,  which  the 
thousands  and  millions  of  this  world's  liberty-loving  souls  have 
erected  to  his  memory  within  their  minds  and  hearts!  Placing 
his  name,  indeed,  where  Milton  once  placed  another's,  we  may 
truly  say: 

"What  needs  my  Lincoln  for  his  honored  bones 
The  labor  of  an  age  in  piled  stones, 
Or  that  his  hallowed  reliques  should  be  hid 
Under  a  starry  pointed  pyramid? 
Dear  Son  of  Memory,  great  heir  of  fame, 
Thou  needs  not  such  weak  witness  of  thy  name! 
Thou  in  our  wonder  and  astonishment 
Hath  built  thyself  a  livelong  monument, 
And  so  sepulchred,  in  such  pomp  doth  lie 
That  Kings  for  such  a  tomb 
Could  wish  to  die!" 


THE    TWENTY-EIGHTH 

ANNUAL   LINCOLN   DINNER 

of  the 

REPUBLICAN   CLUB 

of  the 

City  of  New  York 

At  the  Waldorf-Astoria 

FEBRUARY  12,  1914 


Addresses  of 

HON.   NATHAN   GOFF 

HON.  EDWARD  C.  STOKES 


NATHAN  OOFF 

Senator    from    Virginia;    Secretary    of    the    Navy, 
1881;  U.  S.  Circuit  Judge  (Clarksburg,  Virginia). 


ADDRESS   OF 

HON.  NATHAN  GOFF 


Mr.  Toastmaster,  ladies  and  gentlemen:  It  is  sometimes  em- 
barrassing to  speak  after  such  an  introduction  as  that.  It  makes 
one  think  that  likely  too  much  may  be  expected  of  him,  and  if 
that  be  true  to-night,  what  a  fearful  ordeal  I  have  to  go  through, 
for  after  the  wonderful,  brilliant,  eloquent  and  historical  review 
of  the  history  of  this  land  and  Abraham  Lincoln,  what  is  there 
left  for  mortal  to-night  to  say?  A  gentleman  talking  with  me 
this  evening  as  I  came  into  the  hall  stated,  "Senator,  what  are 
you  to  talk  of  to-night?  Will  you  give  me  a  copy  of  your  ad- 
dress, that  I  may  hand  it  to  the  press?"  and  I  said,  "I  beg  your 
pardon,  but  I  cannot.  I  never  wrote  a  speech  in  my  life."  Then 
he  said,  "Will  you  tell  me  what  you  are  going  to  talk  of?"  I 
said,  "I  will  tell  you  what  a  friend  said  to  me."  I  wonder  if 
that  friend  did  not  know  what  the  Governor  from  the  shores  of 
Jersey  was  going  to  say.  I  wonder  if  he  did  not  know  there  was 
nothing  left  to  say.  There  is  a  grand  old  Biblical  story  of  the 
gleaners,  those  that  passed  through  the  harvest  field,  gathered 
the  few  stray  grains  of  hay,  or  wheat,  or  rye  that  might  be  left, 
and  it  is  said  there  that  a  few  in  sympathy  dropped  a  few 
sheathes  for  the  gleaners.  Can  anybody  tell  where  the  few  were 
dropped  to-night?  Now,  I  am  just  going  to  talk  to  you  a  few 
moments  this  evening,  just  around  the  outskirts,  as  it  were,  and 


150  THE   REPUBLICAN   CLUB 

I  beg  the  pardon  of  my  brother,  the  Senator  from  Idaho,  when, 
if  I  take  much  more  of  the  field,  I  pray  that  God  may  have 
mercy  on  his  oratorical  soul.  Now,  your  distinguished  and  elo- 
quent Toastmaster  has  said  that  I  knew  Abraham  Lincoln,  and 
probably  while  we  are  discussing  that  wonderful  character,  it 
would  be  just  as  well  that  I  commenced  in  saying  what  he  meant 
by  that  allusion.  It  so  happened  that  the  fates  decreed  that  I 
should  be  born  south  of  Mason  and  Dixon's  line  in  Virginia,  and 
paradoxial  as  it  may  appear,  the  loyalty  to  the  flag  that  was 
always  mine  made  me  a  traitor  to  Virgina.  In  my  boyhood  days 
I  loved  the  banner  of  my  fathers.  My  college  friends,  the  boys 
of  my  youth,  went  the  other  way.  I  loved  the  old  flag.  I  loved 
the  Union  of  the  States.  I  enlisted  under  the  banner  of  the  blue 
and  through  the  wars  of  the  republic,  from  the  first  battle  fought, 
when  blood  was  shed  in  the  State  of  Virginia,  down  to  the  sur- 
render of  Appomattox,  as  God  gave  me  to  see  my  duty  as  a  soldier 
under  that  flag.  In  the  vicissitudes  of  war  there,  as  it  came 
to  many,  I  fell  into  the  hands  of  the  enemy.  I  yielded,  as  I 
was  compelled  to  do  with  the  overwhelmingness  of  that  enemy, 
and  I  awoke,  finding  myself  in  the  prison  of  Libby.  Those  who 
fought  and  who  honestly  likely  believed  that  I  was  a  traitor  to 
my  State  and  that  my  father  was,  also  thought,  having  me  in 
their  power,  they  would  show  what  a  traitor  to  Virginia  meant. 
He  was  to  be  tried  for  treason,  but  it  so  happened  that  at  that 
time  that  there  came  in  the  Federal  power  a  Confederate  major, 
I  holding  the  rank  of  a  major  in  the  Union  Army.  That  man 
had  been  tried  as  a  spy  before  I  was  captured.  I  knew  the  in- 
cidents attending  his  trial,  because  he  was  tried  and  convicted 
before  I  was  so  captured.  I  know  that  under  the  laws  of  war 
he  was  justly  convicted.  I  knew  from  my  readings  as  a  school- 
boy of  the  agony  it  was  with  which  he,  who  was  first  in  war, 


ADDRESS   OF  HON.   NATHAN  GOFF  151 

first  in  peace  and  first  in  the  hearts  of  his  countrymen,  signed  the 
death  warrant  of  Andre.  It  was  his  imperative  duty  so  to  do. 
The  powers  that  reigned  in  the  Confederacy  selected  your  speaker 
as  a  hostage  for  that  man,  and  said,  *'As  you  do  unto  Almsley, 
so  we  will  do  unto  Goff,"  and  sent  that  word  to  the  administra- 
tion at  Washington.  I  expected  but  little  relief.  Weary  weeks 
and  months  went  by  with  that  shadow  over  me.  Weary  weeks 
and  months  was  I  told  it  is  but  a  short  time  till  the  hangman's 
noose  shall  be  mine,  and  one  morning  I  was  enlivened  by  a  fiag 
of  truce  note  brought  to  me  generously  by  my  keepers.  I  read  it 
eagerly.  It  said,  *'Young  man,  be  cheerful;  you  are  not  forgot- 
ten. The  men  in  charge  at  Washington  have  not  forgotten  their 
soldiers."  The  name  signed  to  that  was  the  greatest  name  in 
the  history  of  humanity  or  civilization.  The  name  of  one  who,  in 
enduring  bronze  and  chiseled  marble,  will  live  through  all  time 
and  into  eternity.  A  man  among  men,  a  statesman  among  states- 
men, a  martyr  among  martyrs,  a  President  among  Presidents,  God's 
grandest  gift  of  man  to  man,  Abraham  Lincoln.  Surely,  I  took 
heart;  surely,  I  was  encouraged.  I  wrote  him  a  note  in  reply, 
doubting  very  much  that  it  would  ever  reach  its  destination, 
but  it  did,  and  the  archives  of  the  War  Department  show  it,  and 
in  reply  to  that  note — and  pardon  me  if  I  do  not  say  what  I 
VTrote — but  in  reply  to  that  note  he  wrote  again  and  he  said, 
*'Boys  like  you  are  worth  more  in  the  Federal  Army  than  all  of 
the  Confederate  majors  we  have  got,  and  you  are  coming  home." 
I  use  those  words,  ''you  are  coming  home,"  because  a  few  short 
weeks  afterwards  he  said  that  to  me  again.  I  went  home.  I 
left  the  miserable  cells  of  Libby.  I  left  the  dark  walls  of  the 
pentitentiary  at  Salisbury.  I  went  down  the  broad  bosom  of 
the  James  on  a  Confederate  truce  boat,  and  as  I  rounded  the 
bend  in  that  beautiful  river,  and  God's  sunshine  was  just  break- 


152  THE   REPUBLICAN   CLUB 

ing  over  the  level  valley,  I  saw  the  magnificent  steamer,  the 
City  of  New  York,  coming  up,  and  the  beautiful  flag  of  the  coun- 
try floating.     It  was  the  loveliest  sight  that  God  Almighty  ever 
let  human  eyes  gaze  upon.     I  landed  at  Annapolis,  and  I  was  a 
little  startled  to  receive  a  notice  there,  handed  me  by  Major 
Mulford,  the  Union  Commissioner  of  Exchange,  and  it  read,  "You 
are  directed  to  report  immediately  to  the  Secretary  of  War  at 
Washington."    I  was  quite  a  boy.     I  was  a  little  scared.     I  did 
not  know  exactly  what  it  meant,  but  as  a  matter  of  course,  being 
a  soldier,  I  obeyed  the  order,  and  I  presented  myself  the  next 
day  to  the  Secretary  of  War,  a  great  secretary,  a  great  man, 
Edwin  M.  Stanton.    He  said,  "Young  man,  the  President  directed 
me  to  send  that  order.    I  will  give  you  a  letter  of  introduction 
to  him,"  and  he  wrote  it  on  those  papers  that  so  many  of  us  are 
familiar  with,  with  "War  Department"  at  the  head :   "The  bearer 
of  this  is  the  Major  Goff  you  directed  to  be  exchanged.     E.  M. 
Stanton."    These  little  notes  are  at  my  museum  to-day.    I  hardly 
know  what  else  to  call  it — very  valuable  to  me,  too;  at  least, 
dear  mementoes  of  those  early  days  of  my  life.    I  took  it  to  the 
White  House.     I   entered  that   old  cabinet   chamber.     It   was 
crowded  to  excess,  and  I  waited  my  turn.     In  those  days   so 
great  was  the  throng  that  they  formed  in  line  to  pass  the  Chief 
Executive.     I  saw  some  of  the  incidents  that  our  friend  alluded 
to  to-night.     I  saw  the  praying  wife,  the  supplicating  mother, 
the  begging  father,  the  aged,  the  young,  the  boy,  the  girl,  all 
passing  in  review.     I  looked  on  the  face  of  that  wonderful  man 
then  for  the  first  time.     He  had  a  kind  word  for  all.     It  was  a 
wonderful,  indescribable  face,  so  full  of  human  charity,  of  pity, 
of  desiring  to  aid  all.    I  saw  him  take  by  the  hand  one  by  one, 
and  I  could  tell  when  he  said  an  encouraging  word.     His  own 
face  lighted  and  the  smile  on  the  countenance  of  those  that  he 


ADDRESS  OF  HON.  NATHAN  GOFF  153 

Spoke  to  indicated  it.  I  saw  when  he  deemed  it  his  duty  to 
hesitate  for  a  moment.  I  felt  for  those  who  felt  discouraged, 
for  I  knew  not  what  might  be  coming  for  myself,  but  finally  I 
reached  him.  The  great  throng  passed  through,  and  as  I  ap- 
proached him,  looking  at  me,  studying  me,  reading  from  my  uni- 
form that  I  was  a  Major  in  the  Federal  Army,  reading  from  my 
apeparance  that  I  was  not  very  well — for  six  months  in  a  Con- 
federate prison  does  not  contribute  to  one's  personal  appearance 
— and  he  said,  ''Major,  you  are  not  very  well,  are  you?  Can  I 
do  anything  for  you?'*  and  I  handed  him  the  card,  and  he  took 
it,  looked  at  it,  dropped  it.  "Not  very  well;  should  think  not. 
Come  with  me,"  and  almost  with  his  great  arms  around  me  he 
took  me  into  the  library.  He  said,  "Stay  here;  rest  here  until  I 
am  through  with  this  audience;  it  will  not  be  long."  That  was 
my  first  introduction  to  this  man.  I  waited  for  him,  and  he 
came  in  a  short  time.  He  said,  "I  have  some  questions  to  ask 
you.  I  do  not  ask  you  to  answer  them  this  evening.  Take  them 
with  you,  write  your  answers,  and  give  them  to  me  to-morrow. 
Do  not  come  when  the  rush  and  the  crush  is  here,  and  do  not 
come  as  you  came  to-day.  This  card  in  writing  will  bring  you 
into  the  library,  and  I  will  see  you  there."  I  took  those  ques- 
tions. They  related  to  the  suffering  soldiers  in  Confederate 
prisons.  At  that  time  the  exchange  had  been  suspended  and 
men  had  filled  the  prisons  of  the  South,  both  at  Libby,  Belle 
Isle  and  Andersonville,  and  they  were  dying  by  the  score,  and 
the  great  heart  of  this  man  went  out  to  them.  I  found  that  lie 
had  propounded  the  same  questions  to  a  number  of  others  who 
came  back  from  Southern  prisons,  and  by  their  answers  was  this 
great  President  and  Commander-in-Chief  to  determine  the  course 
that  he  would  take,  as  to  whether  or  not  those  soldiers  were  to 
be  brought  home.     As  God  gave  me  to  see  my  duty,  I  answered 


154  THE  REPUBLICAN   CLUB 

those  questions,  and  the  next  day,  according  to  his  directions,  I 
was  there  and  presented  them,  and  there  with  him  was  his  great 
Secretary  of  War.  Now,  then,  he  said,  "Young  man,  read  the 
answer  to  your  first  question,"  and  I  did.  "Now,  the  second," 
and  I  did;  and  he  turned  to  the  Secretary  and  said,  "I  told  you 
so,  Mr.  Secretary.  Now,  the  third";  I  did.  "That  is  in  accord- 
ance with  their  answers,  Mr.  Secretary.  Now,  another" ;  and  I  did. 
I  should,  in  order  that  you  may  understand  a  remark  that  he  made, 
have  stated  a  moment  ago  that  he  said  to  me,  "What  did  you  do 
those  weary,  dreary  months  in  prison?"  I  said,  "I  had  chosen 
the  profession  of  the  law  before  I  entered  the  army.  I  brought 
certain  volumes  and  read  them.  I  brought  Blackstone  and  Chitty 
and  Parsons,  and  I  can  repeat  almost  every  word  they  have.  I 
had  nothing  else  to  do."  Well,  he  went  on  then  with  his  ques- 
tions and  his  conversation  to  the  Secretary.  He  said,  "Mr.  Stan- 
ton, this  is  terrible."  Mr.  Stanton  said,  "Yes."  "Mr.  Stanton, 
don't  you  think  the  boys  had  better  come  home?"  "Mr.  Presi- 
dent," his  reply  was,  "I  have  discussed  that  matter  with  you  in 
substance."  "Mr.  Secretary,  I  think  the  boys  will  come  home." 
"Mr.  President,  it  is  not  war";  and  he  made  a  remark  then  as 
to  the  truth  of  which  I  could  but  testify,  and  as  to  which  I  was 
a  walking,  talking,  living  example.  "Mr.  President,  do  you 
realize  that  you  are  sending  twenty-five  or  thirty  thousand 
strong  men  into  the  army  of  the  Confederacy,  and  receiving  back 
twenty-five  or  thirty  thousand  walking  skeletons?"  But  Abra- 
ham Lincoln,  great  as  he  has  been  portrayed;  Abraham  Lincoln, 
who  has  been  pictured  so  friendly  here  to-night;  Abraham  Lin- 
coln, from  whom  none  of  us  can  take  his  glory  or  none  of  us  add 
to  his  fame,  said,  "Mr.  Stanton,  the  boys  are  coming  home,"  and 
then  in  remembrance  of  what  we  had  talked  of  the  day  before, 
when  I  was  resting  on  the  lounge  and  he  was  talking  with  me, 


ADDRESS  OF  HON.  NATHAN  GOFF  155 

he  said,  "Young  man,  you  have  won  your  first  case.'*  Now,  that 
was  the  Abraham  Lincoln  that  I  knew,  and  that  I  have  endeav- 
ored to  portray  to  you  to-night,  keeping  in  mind  my  last  remark ; 
what  more  can  I  say  of  him?  Leaving  that  subject  then,  what 
else  is  there  for  me  to  talk  about?  My  friend,  Borah,  is  going 
to  talk  of  the  Republican  Party.  That  is  a  subject  that  anyone, 
it  seems  to  me,  especially  in  the  presence  of  such  an  audience  as 
this,  can  talk  about,  but  I  am  not  a  preacher,  you  see.  Then,  as 
my  friend  suggested  to  me,  there  is  not  anything  left  for  me  to 
talk  about,  unless  it  is  the  tariff.  Well,  anyhow,  I  am  just  go- 
ing to  detain  you  a  few  minutes  to  say  that  I  am  a  protective 
tariff  man,  and  I  have  been  so  from  my  boyhood.  Born  in  that 
Southern  land  that  I  have  told  you  about,  looking  at  its  won- 
derful topography,  impressed  with  its  magnificent  wealth,  a  stu- 
dent in  its  colleges,  driving  over  the  magnificent  mountainway 
from  tidewater  Virginia  to  Transylvania  and  the  Ohio  Valley,  I 
could  but  be  impressed  with  that  magnificent  gift  that  God  Al- 
mighty had  given  to  His  children  of  man,  and  yet  all  was  as 
quiet  as  the  grave.  The  magnificent,  pristine  forest  stood  un- 
touched; the  wonderful  development  of  coal  had  never  been 
mined.  Boy  as  I  was,  I  could  but  wonder  "why  it  is,"  and  the 
question  that  I  solved  was  the  question  that  you  elucidated  to- 
night, the  question  of  slavery.  I  lived  in  a  land  where  slavery 
prevailed  and  all  the  men  around  me  were  owners  of  slaves. 
Now,  until  the  discovery  of  the  cotton  gin  and  the  information 
that  it  gave  to  the  South,  that  slavery  and  cotton  production 
would  make  them  immensely  wealthy,  there  had  been  no  pro- 
tective tariff.  I  mean  a  high  protective  tariff,  a  protective  tariff 
that  in  fact  protects.  Why  was  this  situation  existing  in  Vir- 
ginia and  through  the  South  ?  Any  student  of  the  history  of  this 
country  knows  this  fact:  That  early  in  the  nation,  when  our 


156  THE   REPUBLICAN   CLUB 

fathers  founded  the  republic,  it  was  as  Madison,  the  expounder 
of  the  Constitution,  said  upon  this  question  of  protection,  "We 
are  all  Bepublicans,  and  we  are  all  Federalists,"  and  George 
Washington,  when  he  signed  the  first  protective  tariff,  realized 
that  fact,  and  under  it  the  Colonies  or  the  States  then  prospered 
as  no  country  had  ever  before  prospered.  Our  English  rulers 
looked  with  envy  upon  the  Colonies  when  they  attempted  to  be 
independent,  so  far  as  manufactures  were  concerned.  The  English 
Parliament  passed  an  Act  that  it  shall  be  unlawful  for  the  Colo- 
nies to  manufacture  woolen  goods.  It  shall  be  unlawful  for  the 
Colonies  to  establish  mills  and  factories,  and  then,  finally,  when 
the  Colonies  did  establish  the  mills,  the  Parliament  passed  an 
Act.  Now,  think  of  it,  men  of  New  York!  They  passed  an  Act 
that  the  establishment  of  mills  and  factories  in  the  Colonies  are 
hereby  prohibited  and  the  Colonial  Governors  are  hereby  re- 
quired to  do  what  ?  To  abate  them  within  sixty  days  as  nuisances. 
No  wonder  then  we  were  dependent  upon  the  English  or  foreign 
countries  for  our  manufactured  articles.  Now,  presto,  change. 
Under  this  Act  that  I  have  just  alluded  to,  all  over  the  land  our 
mills  and  our  factories  sprang  up.  Employment  was  given  to 
labor.  We  made  our  own  manufactured  goods.  We  ceased  to 
import.  That  continued  down  to  the  time  in  substance — there 
were  some  little  restrictions  when  we  had  what  we  might  call 
the  Walker  Tariff  Act.  The  country  had  been  prospering  before. 
All  over  the  land  mills  closed  down.  Over  in  Pennsylvania,  where 
I  spent  some  of  my  boyhood  days  with  some  college  friends,  the 
furnaces  died  out.  There  was  no  longer  smoke  from  the  stacks. 
My  Democratic  friends  called  the  era  in  our  history  under  the 
Walker  Act  a  golden  era.  They  had  plenty  of  money,  they 
said.  Plenty  of  money!  Where  was  it?  The  money  was  in  the 
Federal  treasury,  but  it  was  not  in  the  pockets  of  the  people. 


ADDRESS  OF  HON.  NATHAN  GOFF  157 

There  were  disasters  throughout  the  land,  from  one  end  to  the 
other.     The  only  citations  that  I  want  to  make  to  you  to-night 
are  a  few  historical  references,  and  I  have  deemed  it  wise  to 
confine  them  as  far  as  practicable  to  Democratic  efforts.     If  I 
quote  a  Republican  effort,  they  say,  "Why,  oh,  yes,  as  a  matter 
of  course;  that  is  all  right;  we  expected  you  to  do  that."    Now, 
I  want  to  call  your  attention  to  the  reference  to  the  condition  of 
the  country  on  this  question  made  by  President  Jackson.     Now, 
old  Hickory — old  Andy  Jackson — was  a  pretty  good  President, 
after  all.     He  said — now  I  am  quoting  from  his  message  of  De- 
cember 4th,  1832,  and  that  I  beg  you  to  remember  was  a  pro- 
tective tariff  era.    These  are  his  words :  "Our  country  presents  on 
every  side  marks  of  prosperity  and  happiness  unequalled  perhaps 
in  any  other  portion  of  the  world."     A  Democratic  President. 
Now  came  the  tariff  for  revenue  of  1832  to  1842.     Under  it,  all 
of  you  who  are  familiar  with  the  history  of  our  country,  recall 
the  conditions  that  I  have  just  pictured.     Now  I  read  from  the 
message  of  President  Polk  of  December  8th,  1846:  "Labor  in  all 
its  branches  is  receiving  an  ample  reward,  while  education,  sci- 
ence and  wages  are  rapidly  enlarging  the  means  of  social  happi- 
ness.    The  progress  of  our  country  in  her  career  of  greatness, 
not  only  in  the  vast  expansion  of  our  limits  and  in  the  rapid  in- 
crease of  our  population,  but  in  its  resources  and  in  its  wealth 
and  in  the  happy  condition  of  our  people,  is  without  an  example 
in  the  history  of  nations."    Then  came  the  revenue  tariff  of  1846. 
Now  I  invite  your  attention  particularly  to  what  is  known  as  the 
Walker  Act.    Under  it,  as  I  have  stated,  our  factories  were  closed. 
At  that  time  the  water  went  by  our  mills,  but  the  wheels  did  not 
turn.     President  Filmore,  in  his  message  of  December  2nd  1851, 
used  these  words:  "The  value  of  our  exports  of  breadstuffs  and 
provisions,  which  it  was  supposed  the  incentive  of  a  low  tariff 


158  THE  REPUBLICAN   CLUB 

and  large  importations  from  abroad  would  have  greatly  aug- 
mented, has  fallen  from  $68,000,000  in  1847  to  $26,000,000  in 
1850.  The  policy  which  dictated  a  low  rate  of  duties  on  foreign 
merchandise,  it  was  thought  by  those  who  established  it,  would 
tend  to  benefit  the  farming  population  of  this  country  by  increas- 
ing the  demand  and  raising  the  price  of  agricultural  products 
in  foreign  markets.  The  foregoing  facts,  however,  seem  to  show 
incontestably  that  no  such  result  has  followed."  Now,  one  more 
quotation  and  I  leave  the  subject,  and  that  was  from  the  last 
Democratic  President  in  his  message  to  Congress,  December  8th, 
1857:  "The  earth  has  yielded  her  fruits  abundantly,  has  bounti- 
fully rewarded  the  toil  of  the  husbandmen.  Our  great  staples 
have  commanded  high  prices  until  within  a  brief  period  our 
manufacturing,  mineral  and  mechanical  occupations  have  largely 
partaken  generally  of  the  prosperity.  We  have  produced  all  the 
elements  of  material  wealth  in  rich  abundance,  and  yet,  notwith- 
standing all  these  advantages,  our  country  in  its  monetary  inter- 
ests is  at  the  present  moment  in  a  deplorable  condition;  in  the 
midst  of  unsurpassed  plenty  in  all  the  productions  and  in  the 
elements  of  national  wealth,  we  find  our  manufactures  suspended, 
our  public  enterprises  abandoned  and  thousands  of  useful  laborers 
thrown  out  of  employment  and  reduced  to  want."  That  condi- 
tion is  existing  over  in  Washington  to-day.  We  have  to-day  an 
administration — let  me  give  you  the  exact  figures,  because  it  is 
monstrous.  I  want  to  show  it  to  you.  It  will  take  but  a  moment 
of  your  time.  We  have  to-day  a  minority  administration,  the 
President  receiving  6,293,120  votes.  William  H.  Taft  received 
3,485,082  votes.  Theodore  Roosevelt  received  4,119,582  votes. 
Eugene  V.  Debs  received  901,839  votes.  Eugene  W.  Chaflin  re- 
ceied  206,487  votes.  Now,  here  is  the  question.  The  aggregate 
vote  against  President  Wilson  was  8,741,680,   while  President 


ADDRESS  OF  HON.  NATHAN  GOFF  159 

Wilson's  vote  was  6,293,000.  Now,  there  are  the  figures  showing 
that  President  Wilson  is  a  minority  President  on  the  votes  of 
the  people  by  2,244,856  votes.  I  say  that  is  monstrous,  and  yet 
I  say  it  is  a  tribute  to  our  Eepublican  form  of  government  be- 
cause from  one  end  of  the  land  to  the  other  there  has  been  ac- 
quiescence in  that  decision,  and  he  was  constitutionally  elected. 
I  allude  to  it  to-night  to  ask  my  friends  of  this  country  not  to 
do  that  thing  again  unless  the  Eepublican  Party — and  it  is  the 
party  that  all  men  ought  to  love,  because  it  is  the  party  of  liberty 
and  freedom,  the  party  that  is  not  a  party  of  mere  expediency, 
a  party  that  hews  to  the  chalk  lines,  let  the  chips  fall  where  they 
will — unless,  I  say,  we  do  get  together  upon  that,  this  thing  will 
be  repeated  in  the  fall  election  and  repeated  in  the  next  Presi- 
dential election.  Now,  one  word  and  good-night.  The  flag  that 
we  all  love  so,  the  flag  for  which  the  fathers  of  the  Republic 
contended,  typifies  to-night  all  that  men  hold  dear  in  civiliza- 
tion. Wherever  it  floats  it  is  welcomed  by  the  people  who  under- 
stand existing  conditions.  It  stands  everywhere  as  typifying  what 
the  great  Republic  is  to-night,  the  land  unto  which  the  eyes  of 
the  weary  and  the  down-pressed  of  all  countries  are  turned.  Do 
not  let  us  interfere  with  it.  Let  us  picture  it  as  it  is  to-night 
and  let  us  see  by  our  votes  that  we  continue  in  the  future  what 
has  been  in  the  past. 


EDWAKD  C.  (CASPER)   STOKES 

Member  New  Jersey  Assembly  and  Senate;  Ez-Gov- 
crnor  of  New  Jersey. 


ADDRESS   OF 

HON.  EDWARD  C.  STOKES 


Mr.  Toastmaster,  ladies  and  gentlemen:  Eising  as  I  do  on  this 
occasion  with  a  timidity  and  modesty  that  always  characterizes 
a  Jersey  man,  your  cordial  welcome  is  all  the  more  appreciated. 
I  realize  the  hazard  of  one  who  lives  in  the  solitude  of  my  State 
attempting  to  ask  for  the  metropolitan  ear  and  to  challenge  the 
metropolitan  taste.  As  I  survey  these  galleries  with  my  bachelor 
eyes,  my  misfortune,  not  my  fault,  I  am  compelled  to  confess  that 
New  York  republicanism  is  somewhat  in  advance  of  New  Jersey 
methods  in  proselyting  for  the  future.  I  did  not  know,  until  I 
looked  over  the  scene  to-night,  that  there  were  so  many  Repub- 
licans in  this  section.  Had  I  had  that  information  last  fall,  you 
would  have  heard  of  a  Macedonian  cry  from  New  Jersey  to  come 
over  and  help  us,  for,  my  friends,  despite  the  prayers  of  your 
Chaplain,  Dr.  Carter,  and  the  eloquence  of  Senator  Borah,  there 
was  a  deficit  over  there  when  the  votes  were  counted  last  fall, 
but  perhaps  that  is  a  selfish  view  to  take  of  the  situation,  for  as 
I  understand  it,  you,  on  that  occasion,  were  engaged  in  the  more 
patriotic  and  laudable  work  of  fusing  with  your  opponents,  in 
order  to  enable  them  to  clean  house. 

I  approach  this  subject  with  no  little  misgiving.  I  have  been 
most  royally  entertained  here  to-night.  I  have  been  introduced 
to  eight  of  my  predecessors  who  were  assigned  the  same  toast  that 


162  THE   REPUBLICAN   CLUB 


has  been  assigned  to  me,  and  at  their  presentation  I  was  greeted 
with  the  remark  that  **this  gentleman  delivered  the  finest  speech 
ever  heard  in  this  hall  on  that  subject"  and  then  I  wished  that 
I  had  stayed  home. 

I  congratulate  you,  Mr.  Toastmaster  and  members  of  this  Club, 
upon  being,  as  I  understand  it,  the  first  organization  to  annually 
preserve  in  fitting  ceremony  the  memory  of  the  greatest  of  Ameri- 
cans and  a  Republican  who,  even  our  so-called  Progressive  friends 
cannot  criticise.  I  say  "co-called  Progressive."  I  do  not  admit 
that  that  term  belongs  exclusively  to  them,  because  the  Repub- 
lican Party  has  been  the  progressive  party  of  this  nation  since 
the  days  of  John  C.  Fremont.  Ages  have  their  different  customs. 
This  world  is  what  it  is  to-day  because  of  those  who  have  gone 
before,  and  this  man  came  into  the  world  under  conditions  dif- 
ferent from  those  of  to-day.  There  was  not  an  electric  light,  or 
a  telegraph,  or  a  telephone,  or  railroad.  He  was  born  out  in  the 
wilds  of  the  Kentucky  woods,  in  a  cabin  without  a  window  or  a 
door  or  a  floor.  He  was  without  a  cradle.  He  had  no  godfather 
but  poverty,  and  no  inheritance  but  hardship.  Though  men  knew 
it  not,  that  lowly  born  babe  was  to  be  the  Moses  of  the  new 
world  and  they  called  him  Abraham  Lincoln.  He  was  country 
bred,  as  many  great  Americans  were.  He  was  a  child  of  the 
woods.  He  drank  in  their  sweetness  and  their  fragrance,  their 
patience  and  their  purity,  their  silence  and  their  melancholy, 
and  from  them  he  gathered  courage  and  endurance  and  self- 
reliance.  He  walked  the  pathway  of  trial  from  boyhood  to  man- 
hood. He  lost  mother  and  sister  in  his  early  years.  We  pass 
laws  to-day  forbidding  boys  and  girls  from  working  until  16 
or  18  years  of  age,  until  we  are  growing  up  a  race  of  hot-house 
darlings,  without  the  habits  of  industry.  This  man  worked  on 
a  boat  at  the  age  of  eight.    He  lived  for  a  year  in  a  three-faced 


ADDRESS  OF  HON.  EDWARD  C.  STOKES  163 

cottage,  one  side  exposed  to  the  weather  and  the  storm.  He 
knew  the  hardships  of  the  pioneer's  winter.  He  was  glad  at 
times  to  earn  ten  dollars  a  month,  and  he  never  complained  of 
the  high  cost  of  living.  He  never  had  a  year's  schooling  in  all 
his  life,  and  in  his  day  school  consisted  of  the  rudest  cabin,  with 
teachers  who  boarded  out.  One  of  the  early  educators  of  that 
day  said  he  boarded  in  a  house  consisting  of  a  single  room,  15 
feet  square,  inhabited  by  a  man  and  his  wife,  ten  children,  three 
dogs  and  two  cats.  Aside  from  this,  his  schooling  consisted  of 
his  moments  of  respite  from  work  and  his  hours  by  the  light  of 
that  famous  pine  knot  by  night,  with  a  shingle  for  a  blackboard, 
a  jack  knife  for  an  eraser  and  a  piece  of  charcoal  for  a  pencil, 
and  yet  this  man,  without  any  early  educational  advantages, 
became  the  master  of  the  English  tongue.  Emerson  himself,  a 
child  of  culture,  ranks  him  with  Aesop,  and  the  great  French 
litterateur,  Montalembert,  commends  his  style  as  a  model  for 
princes  to  copy,  and  the  common  people  rank  him  easily  first 
by  adopting  many  of  his  phrases  into  the  current  speech  of  man- 
kind. Upon  a  wall  of  Brasenose  College  at  Oxford,  England, 
there  hangs  a  letter  which  he  penned  to  a  bereaved  mother,  who 
had  given  five  of  her  sons  to  the  service  of  the  Republic,  as  a 
specimen  of  the  finest  English  ever  written.  There  it  hangs  in 
the  place  of  honor,  above  the  trained  scholarship  of  the  ages. 
Why,  Oxford  is  six  centuries  old.  It  has  been  the  centre  of 
literary  movement.  From  it  have  gone  forth  generations  of 
learned  men,  philosophers  and  poets  and  theologians  and  his- 
torians; William  Pitt,  the  friend  of  America;  Fox,  the  g^eat 
English  writer;  Johnson,  the  lexicographer;  Burke,  the  prose 
poet;  and  yet  this  old  university,  with  its  six  centuries  of  piled 
up  learning,  stretches  its  hand  across  the  Atlantic  and  places  the 
laurel  crown  upon  the  brow  of  this  uneducated  child  of  the  west 


164  THE  REPXTBLICAN   CLUB 

as  a  master  of  the  finest  English  ever  penned.  Upon  an  old  east- 
em  wall  is  this  picture;  A  king  is  making  of  his  crown  a  chain, 
and  by  his  side  a  slave  is  making  of  his  chain  a  crown.  Under- 
neath is  this  inscription:  "Our  lives  are  what  we  make  them,  no 
matter  of  what  they  are  made."  So  Abraham  Lincoln  illustrates 
the  possibility  of  American  opportunity  and  shows  what  can  be 
accomplished  by  every  boy  of  honest  poverty  and  ambition,  and 
he  stands  as  a  splendid  refutation  of  the  cry  of  the  Socialist  that 
things  are  unevenly  divided,  because  it  was  the  hardship  and 
poverty  and  discipline  which  were  the  advantages  that  made  him 
finally  the  great  chieftain  of  the  land.. 

Lincoln's  life,  with  its  meagre  schooling,  is  none  the  less  a 
plea  for  education.  He  strove  hard  to  overcome  the  disadvantages 
of  early  youth.  He  walked  forty-four  miles  to  get  a  copy  of 
Elackstone,  and  he  read  one  hundred  pages  of  it  as  he  walked 
back.  He  was  a  man  of  few  books.  You  know  the  list :  Pilgrim's 
Progress,  Eobinson  Crusoe,  Aesop's  Fables,  History  of  the  United 
States,  Life  of  Washington,  the  Bible,  and  later  Shakespeare. 
These  constituted  his  accessible  library,  but  he  knew  those  books 
thoroughly  and,  knowing  a  few  books  thoroughly,  he  was  better 
equipped  than  his  competitors  who  knew  many  books  superficially. 
Lincoln  illustrates  the  power  of  concentration  which  enables  a 
man  to  hit  the  bull's-eye  and  which  comes  from  a  thorough 
mastery  of  the  subject,  and  he  stands  in  marked  contrast  to  some 
of  that  superficial  education  to-day,  which  spreads  itself  over 
many  fields  and  covers  topics  too  numerous  for  the  grasp  of 
thought  and  leaves  the  student  with  a  bird's  eye  of  everything 
and  an  accurate  view  of  nothing. 

The  superintendent  of  compulsory  education  at  Chicago  has  in 
his  possession  a  thousand  volumes,  taken  from  juvenile  offenders, 
which  tell  an  appalling  story  of  the  kind  of  literature  upon  which 


ADDRESS  OF  HON.  EDWARD  C.  STOKES  165 

these  unfortunates  feed  and  the  sources  whence  they  derive  their 
first  knowledge  of  wrongdoing  and  crime.  One  of  the  greatest 
evils  of  this  land  is  the  habit  of  light  and  superficial  reading. 
Most  of  us  to-day  simply  read  the  headlines  and  draw  our  con- 
clusions, without  ever  reading  the  news  articles.  As  a  rule, 
these  are  inaccurate  enough.  Loose  and  superficial  reading  de- 
generates the  mind,  unfits  it  for  close  reasoning  and  leads  it  to 
hasty  conclusions.  I  do  not  know  whether  I  am  a  reformer  or 
not.  My  friends  think  I  am.  My  opponents  say  the  contrary, 
but  if  I  had  the  power  to  be  an  efiicient  reformer,  I  would  strike 
out  from  the  newspaper  and  magazines  and  the  publications  of 
this  land,  all  reference  to  crime  and  wrongdoing,  and  bigamy  and 
divorce  and  other  social  ills. 

The  strongest  characteristic  of  the  human  mind  is  imitation. 
It  is  so  much  easier  to  copy  than  to  be  original.  If  you  will  put 
before  the  youth  of  this  land  a  good  picture,  the  reaction  will 
be  good.  If  you  put  before  the  youth  an  evil  picture,  the  re- 
action will  be  evil,  and,  my  friends,  the  evils  in  this  land  are 
advertised  out  of  all  proportion  to  their  frequency.  Why,  if 
some  man  or  woman  goes  wrong,  and  I  speak  with  impartiality 
on  this  subject  as  a  bachelor,  their  pictures  occupy  the  front 
page  of  the  newspaper,  but  you  never  hear  a  word  about  the 
thousands  and  thousands  and  thousands,  aye,  millions  of  men  and 
women,  God-fearing,  who  live  happy  married  lives  in  their 
American  homes.  The  business  men  of  this  country  are  honest, 
the  vast  majority,  yet,  my  friends,  because  now  and  then  one 
goes  wrong,  we  have  been  passing  laws  and  we  are  continuing 
to  pass  laws  that  treat  the  business  men  as  though  they  were 
not  safe  to  be  trusted  with  the  affairs  of  this  nation. 

You  know,  I  sometimes  wish — I  am  not  in  office  now,  I  am 
just  a  has-been — I  sometimes  wish  that  the  American  business 


166  THE  EEPUBLICAN   CLUB 

man  could  be  treated  with  the  same  consideration  which  we  show 
to  the  Mexicans.  That  is,  I  mean  I  wish  the  American  business 
man  could  be  left  alone  to  settle  his  own  affairs,  just  as  we  are 
letting  the  Mexicans  alone  to  settle  their  affairs.  Well,  that  is 
just  thrown  in  on  the  side,  with  apologies  to  Senator  Borah.  I 
suppose  you  have  read  Hawthorne's  story  of  the  Great  Stone 
Face.  It  illustrates  the  influence  of  an  ideal  upon  the  life  of  a 
boy.  Every  morning  as  that  boy  goes  out  from  his  little  cottage 
he  sees  this  great  stone  image,  that  typifies  to  him  all  that  is 
great  and  good  in  human  character,  and  seeing  it  often,  he  grows 
to  like  it,  and,  growing  to  like  it,  he  becomes  like  it.  Such  is 
always  the  influence  of  companionship  with  the  great  and  the 
good.  Abraham  Lincoln's  mind  was  never  tainted  with  excur- 
sions into  the  light  and  the  forbidden.  He  was  not  one  of  those 
miserable  philosophers  who  claim  that  in  order  to  avoid  evil  you 
must  know  something  about  it.  The  books  he  read  were  moral, 
intellectual,  uplifting,  and  upon  these  as  a  foundation  was 
reared  a  character  fit  for  a  martyr's  crown. 

It  is  a  little  difficult  to  tell  when  the  American  type  of  man 
first  appeared  in  this  country.  You  know  we  are  a  cosmopolitan 
people.  We  are  composed  of  all  races.  We  are  French  and 
Italian,  and  German  and  English,  and  Russian  and  Hungarian, 
and  Irish  officially.  The  men  who  signed  the  Declaration  and 
who  wrote  the  Constitution,  and  the  officers  who  led  the  armies 
of  the  Revolution  were,  for  the  most  part,  English  gentlemen. 
Washington  was  an  English  country  squire.  Hamilton  was  noted 
for  his  aristocratic  dignity  and  bearing,  and  even  old  Ben  Frank- 
lin, that  old  commoner,  who  lived  in  that  slow  city  of  Philadel- 
phia in  his  woolen  hose,  was  the  idol  of  the  fine  ladies  and  great 
nobles  of  the  courts,  as  though  he  had  been  born  a  marquis. 
Brave  men  as  they  were,  our  forefathers  were  men  of  powdered 


ADDRESS  OF  HON.  EDWARD  C.  STOKES  167 

wigs  and  ruffled  shirts — they  are  coming  back  in  style — and  of 
knee  breeches  and  shoe  buckles.  They  would  have  graced  the 
halls  of  St.  James  or  Versailles.  They  never  knew  the  democracy 
of  this  land,  as  we  understand  it.  Indeed,  that  democracy  had 
not  yet  appeared.  Events  were  rapidly  culminating  in  a  typical 
Americanism.  The  Revolution  had  died  out.  The  problems  of 
that  war  had  been  solved,  and  the  principles  of  American  life 
were  coming  to  the  test.  As  Abraham  Lincoln  put  it,  there  were 
always  two  principles  that  had  been  in  conflict  and  always  will 
be.  One  is  the  divine  rights  of  kings  and  the  other  the  common 
right  of  humanity,  and  it  is  the  same  principles,  no  matter  what 
form  it  takes.  It  is  the  principle  which  says  you  labor  and  toil 
and  earn  bread  and  I  will  eat  it.  Puritan  and  Cavalier  founded 
here  a  system  that  opened  a  new  land  for  the  freedom  of  human 
conscience.  When  England  tried  to  subdue  them,  they  con- 
quered, and  the  republic  was  born,  but  they  left  shackles  upon 
the  limbs  of  men.  Our  forefathers  never  intended  that  slavery 
should  be  permanent.  Lincoln  conclusively  proved  that  in  his 
famous  Cooper  "Union  speech.  Franklin  said  all  the  prayers  sent 
to  Heaven  by  the  Virginians  were  mere  blasphemy  while  slavery 
lived.  Jay  said  that  all  prayers  sent  to  Heaven  in  the  name  of 
liberty  were  in  vain,  so  long  as  slavery  continued.  Jefferson 
drew  the  line  where  the  black  wave  of  slavery  should  be  stayed. 
Mason  mourned  the  penalty  which  his  descendants  must  pay  for 
the  sins  of  their  father,  but  slavery  grew  and  multiplied  con- 
tinuously, and  all  the  compromises  of  Clay  and  Webster — as  com- 
promises always  do — only  served  to  intensify  the  controversy. 
The  hour  of  culmination  was  near  at  hand.  The  repeal  of  the 
Missouri  compromise,  the  passage  of  the  fugutive  slave  law,  the 
Kansas-Nebraska  struggle,  the  Lincoln-Douglas  debate,  and  John 
Brown's  raids  followed  each  other  in  rapid  succession.    They  were 


168  THE   REPUBLICAN   CLUB 

the  pre-natal  struggles  of  true  Americanism.    Abraham  Lincoln's 
training  had  been  all  American.    He  said  in  Independence  Hall, 
Philadelphia,   "I  never  had  a  political  sentiment  that  did  not 
spring  from  the  Declaration  that  guarantees  freedom,  not  only 
to  this  land,  but  to  all  mankind,  and  if  this  country  cannot  be 
saved  without  surrendering  that  principle,  I  would  rather  be  as- 
sassinated on  the  spot  than  sacrifice  it."    In  1858  came  the  Lin- 
coln-Douglas debates.     Douglas  was  one  of  the  leading  men  of 
the  country;  the  expected  candidate  of  his  party  for  President, 
as  he  afterward  was,  and  Lincoln's  selection  to  cope  with  this 
little  giant  of  the  West  marked  him  as  a  rising  man.     When 
those  debates  were  finished,  Lincoln's  fame  was  national,  and 
he  was  everywhere  heralded  as  the  champion  of  the  new  Ameri- 
canism.    In  reply  to  Judge  Douglas'  charge  that  he  was  advo- 
cating social  equality  between  white  man  and  black  man,  he 
said:  "I  know  of  no  reason  why  the  black  man  is  not  entitled 
to  all  of  the  rights  in  the  Declaration;  life,  liberty  and  pursuit 
of  happiness.     He  may  not  be  Judge  Douglas'  equal  in  many 
respects,  perhaps  not  in  mental  and  moral  endowment,  but  in 
the  right  to  eat  the  bread  which  his  own  hand  earns,  without 
asking  anyone's  leave,  he  is  my  equal,  Judge  Douglas'  equal  and 
the  equal  of  any  living  man."     "When,"  said  Lincoln,  "a  man 
governs  himself,  that  is  self-government,  but  when  he  governs 
another  man   without   that  man's   consent,   that  is   despotism." 
Trite  remark,  you  say.    Ah,  yes;  but  it  required  courage  to  say 
it  in  those  days,  because  those  were  the  days  in  which  Garrison 
was  dragged  through  the  streets  of  cultured  Boston,  with  a  rope 
around  his  body,  by  an  angry  mob,  because  of  his  abolition  senti- 
ments.   Those  were  the  days  when,  in  Lincoln's  own  State,  Love- 
joy  was  killed  while  defending  his  printing  press  against  rioters, 
because  he  had  issued  anti-slavery  documents.     Into  the  throes 


ADDEESS  OF  HON.  EDWARD  C.  STOKES  169 

of  this  controversy,  into  this  atmosphere,  tense  and  vibrant  with 
the  silence  that  portended  the  coming  storm,  Lincoln  threw  that 
prophet-like  declaration  which  brought  this  nation  face  to  face 
against  itself:  "A  house  divided  against  itself  cannot  stand.  I 
do  not  believe  that  this  Union  can  exist  half  slave  and  half  free. 
I  do  not  expect  to  see  the  Union  dissolved.  I  do  not  expect  to 
see  the  house  fall,  but  I  expect  it  will  cease  to  be  divided." 
The  battle  was  on.  This  first  great  American,  as  Lowell  called 
him,  had  raised  a  banner  which  was  finally  to  triumph  at 
Appomattox. 

Lincoln's  whole  heart  was  bound  up  in  the  preservation  of  the 
Union.  That  had  been  the  theme  of  his  early  speeches  and  the 
hope  of  his  administration.  To  him  the  Union  was  the  paramount 
issue,  and  although  many  well-meaning  anti-slavery  advocates 
condemned  him  because  he  refused  to  make  slavery  the  para- 
mount issue  of  the  war,  Lincoln  steadfastly  and  courageously  re- 
fused to  be  diverted  from  his  purpose.  Lincoln  was  not  a  per- 
sonal President.  He  was  a  constitutional  President,  and  he  stood 
by  the  Constitution,  though  it  protected  slavery,  with  a  hostile 
army  in  front,  and  doubting  and  timid  friends  in  the  rear.  Lin- 
coln had  all  kinds  of  advice.  Most  public  men  do.  It  is  one  of 
the  remarkable  things  about  the  American  people  that  they  will 
spend  their  tempers  and  energies  and  their  money,  before  the 
Corrupt  Practice  Act  was  passed,  in  electing  the  only  man  fit  to 
be  elected  to  a  particular  position,  and  as  soon  as  he  is  elected, 
they  commence  to  tell  him  how  to  manage  affairs.  A  delegation 
from  the  Evangelical  Church  of  Chicago  visited  Lincoln,  to  urge 
him  to  issue  forthwith  the  proclamation  of  universal  emancipa- 
tion. Lincoln  understood  public  sentiment  better  than  they,  and 
he  knew  the  time  was  not  yet  ripe  for  that  step,  and  yet  the 
delegation  was  of  such  a  character  he  could  not  deny  it,  although 


170  THE   REPUBLICAN   CLUB 

he  could  not  accede  to  its  request,  and  his  answer  shows  the  dip- 
lomatic skill  of  the  man  and  his  ability  to  handle  men  and  situa- 
tions. He  said,  **I  am  approached  with  entirely  opposite  views, 
by  religious  men,  both  of  whom  claim  to  represent  the  divine 
will.  Either  one  or  the  other  must  be  mistaken;  perhaps  in  some 
respects  both.  I  trust  you  will  not  regard  it  irrelevant  if  I  sug- 
gest that  if  God  is  revealing  His  will  to  others  upon  a  matter  so 
intimately  connected  with  my  duty,  it  is  not  improbable  that 
He  would  say  something  to  me  about  it";  and  the  delegation 
withdrew,  silent,  if  not  satisfied. 

He  wrote  to  Horace  Greeley,  who,  with  an  editor's  right,  was 
then  trying  to  run  the  affairs  of  government.  "My  paramount 
object  is  to  save  the  Union  and  not  to  save  or  destroy  slavery. 
If  I  can  save  the  Union  by  freeing  none  of  the  slaves,  I  will  do 
that.  If  I  can  save  the  Union  by  freeing  all  of  the  slaves,  I  will 
do  that.  If  I  save  the  Union  by  freeing  some  of  the  slaves  and 
leaving  others  alone,  I  will  do  that."  Lincoln  relied  upon  the 
intense  love  for  the  Union.  He  knew  that  the  speeches  of  Web- 
ster and  Clay,  and  thousands  of  others,  had  made  the  Union 
sacred.  He  knew  that  for  the  Union  millions  had  knelt  at  the 
altars  of  slavery,  and  he  believed  that  for  the  Union  millions 
would  kneel  at  the  altars  of  liberty.  After  trying  every  ex- 
pedient and  failing  in  all,  he  knew  that  either  slavery  or  the 
republic  must  die,  and  so  upon  the  1st  of  January,  1863,  he  took 
his  pen  and  wrote  the  word  "Liberty"  across  the  banners  of  his 
army.  And  just  as  the  heart  of  Constantine  was  uplifted  of  old 
by  the  sign  of  the  Cross  in  the  sky,  so  from  this  moment  the 
soldiers  of  Lincoln  stepped  with  firmer  and  holier  tread.  That 
one  act  accomplished  more  for  mankind  than  ever  was  permitted 
mortal  man  to  do.  It  changed  the  whole  aspect  of  the  war.  It 
brought  to  the  North  the  friendship  of  the  humanitarians  of  the 


ADDRESS  OF  HON.  EDWARD  C.  STOKES  171 

earth.  The  old  world  might  want  to  see  the  republic  dissolved, 
but  they  could  not  stand  openly  for  slavery.  It  not  only  freed 
four  million  slaves  and  other  millions  yet  unborn,  but  it  did 
more.  It  made  a  soldier  of  the  black  man,  and  be  it  said  to  his 
credit,  120,000  of  them  shouldered  their  muskets  and  marched 
to  consummate  emancipation  for  all  mankind. 

Lincoln  never  lost  faith  in  the  people.  He  was  not  a  demagogic 
pretence  to  mould  party  politics.  He  believed  in  the  people.  He 
trusted  them.  He  was  loved  by  them.  He  drew  his  inspirations 
from  them.  He  dwelt  in  their  hearts  and  their  homes  and  their 
sanctuaries,  and  he  did  what  so  few  public  men  do,  and  what  too 
many  Republicans  are  not  doing  in  these  days.  He  never  failed 
to  answer  his  critics  on  all  possible  occasions.  He  never  hid  be- 
hind that  cowardly  plea  of  contemptuous  silence.  He  was  always 
talking  to  the  people,  either  by  letters  or  through  the  press,  tell- 
ing them  his  policies,  and  they  in  turn  trusted  him  as  their  pro- 
phet and  their  shepherd,  and  when  he  called,  they  came  with 
their  all  to  the  altar  of  sacrifice. 

History  paints  no  picture  like  it.  Sons  of  pious  ancestors, 
striplings  from  college,  students  from  theological  seminaries, 
young  lawyers  in  their  offices,  mechanics  from  their  benches, 
lumbermen  from  the  forests,  farmers  from  their  plows,  all  with 
one  refrain  in  their  hearts  and  one  song  on  their  lips:  We're 
coming,  Father  Abraham,  three  hundred  thousand  strong.  Other 
allies  crowd  that  picture,  just  as  the  children  of  Israel  gave  to 
the  building  of  the  temple;  so  these  people  of  the  North  gave 
nearly  three  billions  of  dollars  in  popular  loans.  They  suffered 
an  increase  of  seven-fold  in  their  taxes.  Out  of  every  twenty 
able-bodied  men,  they  offered  up  nine  to  the  sacrifice.  Science 
lent  its  aid  to  build  bridges  and  roads  to  speed  the  progress  of  the 
army.     Surgeons  gave  their  experience  and  skill.     The  most  re- 


172  THE   REPUBLICAN    CLUB 

fined  and  gentlest  women  of  the  land  left  homes  of  comfort  and 
went  down  to  the  front,  to  nurse  the  wounded  and  dying.  Con- 
gregations gave  up  their  clergymen,  until  five  thousand  ministers 
marched  with  the  army  to  keep  unsullied  the  moral  and  religious 
character  of  the  men.  Do  you  wonder  that  Abraham  Lincoln 
trusted  this  responsive  host  and  that  with  his  hand  in  theirs  he 
marched  through  storm,  cloud  and  gloom  until  the  sunlight  broke 
again  upon  the  most  magnificent  exhibition  of  Christian  democ- 
racy this  world  has  ever  seen. 

His  life  is  a  series  of  dramatic  pictures.  I  see  him  now  in 
1831.  He  is  just  entering  Sangamon  County,  Illinois,  for  the 
first  time.  He  is  coming  down  the  fork  of  a  river  by  that  name, 
in  a  little  canoe,  penniless,  friendless,  begging  for  the  necessaries 
of  life.  I  see  him  thirty  years  later.  He  is  leaving  the  State  of 
Illinois  amidst  the  glad  acclaim  of  his  fellow  citizens;  the  post- 
master of  New  Salem,  with  its  little  fifteen  houses,  has  become 
the  head  of  the  nation.  The  captain  of  a  volunteer  backwoods 
military  company  has  become  the  Commander-in-Chief  of  the 
Army  and  Navy  of  the  United  States.  The  transition  from  the 
simple  citizenship  of  Abe  Lincoln  to  the  chieftainship  of  this  land 
is  marvelous  to  contemplate,  and  could  be  witnessed  in  no  other 
co^intry,  and  he  takes  the  helm  of  the  Ship  of  State  in  the  midst 
of  a  tornado.  Seven  States  had  seceded  before  he  takes  the  oath 
of  office.  Four  more  follow.  The  army  is  scattered  in  hostile 
States,  its  officers  resigning  and  joining  the  service  of  the  Con- 
federates. The  navy  scattered  to  the  ends  of  the  earth.  Members 
of  Congress  talking  treason  in  the  streets  of  Washington,  and 
resigning;  the  Supreme  Court  unfriendly  to  the  Union;  Europe 
hostile;  the  treasury  bankrupt.  Tremendous  problems  for  this 
untried  man,  yet  he  faces  it  just  as  he  faced  the  hardships  of  his 
boyhood  days,  and  in  the  storm  and  stress  I  see  him  smile  and  I 


ADDRESS  OF  HON.  EDWARD  C.  STOKES  173 

hear  him  say,  "Let  us  helieve  that  through  the  clouds  the  sun 
still  shines." 

I  see  him  now  as  a  man  of  war.  He  arms  two  millions  of 
men.  He  gathers  half  a  million  horses.  He  drives  his  artillery 
twelve  hundred  miles  in  a  single  week.  He  fights  over  six  hun- 
dred battles.  He  spends  three  billions  of  dollars.  He  suspends 
the  act  of  habeas  corpus.  He  holds  in  the  hollow  of  his  hand  the 
power  of  life  and  prison  and  death.  A  single  word  from  this  man 
a  million  men  spring  to  their  arms,  regiment  on  regiment,  brigade 
upon  brigade,  corps  on  corps;  another  word  and  they  march 
through  forests,  across  streams,  over  fields;  cannon  may  rend 
them,  half  their  number  may  fall,  and  at  another  word  from 
this  man  half  a  million  more  spring  to  take  their  places  in  the 
carnival  of  death.  Power  on  the  one  side,  difiiculty  on  the  other; 
hostile  armies  in  front,  timid  and  harping  friends  in  the  rear. 
A  weaker  man  would  have  followed  the  easy  pathway  of  a  despot, 
but  this  giant  of  the  West  never  falters,  and  in  all  of  the  grandeur 
and  the  power  he  wielded  he  remains  the  simplest,  kindest,  gen- 
tlest man,  grieving  with  the  orphan's  grief  and  shedding  his  tears 
upon  the  soldier's  grave. 

No  man  can  thoroughly  understand  the  character  of  Lincoln 
without  a  recognition  of  his  faith  in  God.  He  believed  implicitly 
in  God.  As  he  left  Springfield,  he  said  to  his  friends  and  neigh- 
bors :  "I  go  to  assume  a  duty  and  responsibility  greater  than  that 
assumed  by  any  President,  save  perhaps  Washington.  He  could 
not  have  succeded  without  the  aid  of  divine  Providence,  upon 
whom  at  all  times  he  relied.  Upon  that  same  Almighty  power  I 
place  my  reliance.  Pray  for  me  that  I  may  have  divine  assist- 
ance, without  which  I  cannot  succeed,  but  with  which  I  cannot 
fail."  Whenever  Bishop  Ames  and  Bishop  Simpson  went  to  Wash- 
ington, both  of  them  clergymen  of  the  Methodist  Church,  they 


174  THE   REPUBLICAN   CLUB 

called  upon  the  great  emancipator  at  the  White  House,  and  they 
never  were  allowed  to  leave  until  they  were  invited  into  a  private 
room  for  a  word  of  prayer.  Lincoln  believed  in  the  efficacy  of 
prayer. 

Great  man  as  he  was,  Lincoln  was  a  human  man,  and  he  was 
so  great  that  he  was  easily  approachable.  Only  small  minds  are 
compelled  to  surround  themselves  with  ceremony  and  meticulous 
forms.  Lincoln  was  the  same  to  the  pleading  mother  as  to  the 
imperious  King;  the  same  to  the  private  soldier  as  to  the  com- 
manding General.  He  did  not  patronize  the  one;  he  did  not  bend 
to  the  other.  He  was  a  simple,  great,  good  man.  And  he  had  a 
heart.  That  is  what  every  public  man  should  have — a  heart  as 
well  as  a  head.  He  could  not  endure  suffering  in  any  form. 
Why,  he  would  ford  an  icy  stream  to  succor  a  whining  dog,  and 
he  would  stop  in  the  midst  of  his  journey  to  gather  up  some  fallen 
fledgling  and  restore  them  to  their  nests.  Some  of  these  old  vet- 
erans will  tell  you  that  in  spite  of  his  great  Secretary  of  War 
and  commanding  generals,  at  the  instance  of  a  pleading  father, 
mother,  brother  or  son,  he  pardoned  soldier  after  soldier,  because 
he  said,  "The  enemy  are  shooting  enough  of  our  boys  without 
our  shooting  any  more,"  and  when  he  had  granted  pardon  he 
never  could  rest  until  he  was  assured  that  the  orders  reached  the 
place  of  execution  before  the  execution  occurred. 

In  one  case,  a  wife  of  one  of  Mosby's  men,  who  had  been  caught 
in  our  lines,  tried  and  sentenced  to  be  shot,  came  to  Lincoln  to 
plead  for  her  husband.  Lincoln  heard  her  plea,  and  he  said, 
"Madam,  was  he  a  good  husband  and  a  good  father,  or  did  he 
drink  and  abuse  you?"  "Oh,  no,"  said  the  poor  woman,  "he  was 
a  good  husband  and  a  good  father,  and  we  cannot  do  without  him. 
The  only  fault  he  had,  he  was  a  fool  about  politics.  He  was 
born  in  the  South.     I  was  born  in  the  North,  and  if  you  will 


ADDRESS  OF  HON.  EDWARD  C.  STOKES  175 

only  pardon  him  and  give  him  to  me,  I  will  see  that  he  never 
fights  against  the  North  again."  *'Well,"  said  Lincoln,  ''I  will 
pardon  him,  and  I  will  turn  him  over  to  you  for  safe-keeping," 
and  the  poor  woman,  overcome  with  joy,  broke  down  into  hys- 
terical weeping,  and  then  Lincoln,  to  relieve  the  situation,  looked 
at  her  and  said,  "Why,  my  good  woman,  if  I  had  known  this 
would  have  given  you  so  much  trouble,  I  would  not  have  pardoned 
him." 

On  another  occasion,  a  father  was  pleading  for  the  life  of  his 
son,  who  had  been  sentenced  to  be  shot  as  a  deserter,  and  after 
hearing  his  plea,  Lincoln  called  in  one  of  his  secretaries  and  said, 
"Telegraph  General  Butler  to  suspend  execution  in  this  case  until 
further  orders  from  me."  The  father  looked  at  him  and  said, 
"Mr.  President,  I  cannot  take  that  message  to  that  boy^s  mother. 
She  is  distracted  now  and  almost  hysterical  with  anxiety,  and  she 
will  fear  lest  you  change  your  mind  and  execute  her  boy." 
"Well,"  said  the  President,  "you  know  I  have  to  do  the  best  I 
can  with  this  administration,  and  my  generals  tell  me  that  my 
mercy  is  destroying  all  discipline  as  it  is,  but  you  go  home,  and 
you  tell  that  boy's  mother  that  if  he  lives  until  they  get  further 
orders  from  me,  when  he  does  die  people  will  say  that  Old 
Methuselah  was  a  babe  compared  with  him."  Lincoln  said,  "I 
want  it  said  of  me  that  I  plucked  a  thistle  and  I  planted  a  flower 
wherever  a  flower  would  grow."  Lincoln's  humor  was  keen  and 
logical,  and  not  light  and  frivolous,  as  is  sometimes  thought.  His 
stories  always  illustrated  a  point.  They  drove  home  an  argument. 
They  made  a  link  in  the  chain  of  logic.  He  was  so  plain  in  his 
method  of  speech  he  could  be  understood  by  all.  His  humor  was 
at  times  like  a  parable.  On  one  occasion,  when  some  of  our  good 
ministerial  friends  went  down  to  Washington  to  complain  of 
General  Grant,  the  only  man  who  at  that  time  was  winning  vie- 


176  THE   REPUBLICAN   CLUB 

tories,  because  they  said  General  Grant  was  drinking  too  much 
whiskey,  Lincoln's  reply  to  the  delegation  that  if  they  could  only 
tell  him  what  kind  of  whiskey  Grant  drank  he  would  give  it  to 
the  rest  of  his  generals,  was  a  sufficient  answer  to  the  charge, 
whether  true  or  false.  When  our  dear  old  friend,  Horace  Greeley, 
was  complaining  because  Lincoln  was  not  treating  the  advances 
of  the  South  in  proper  spirit  and  did  not  send  a  Peace  Commission 
to  treat  with  the  Peace  Commissioners  from  the  Confederate 
States,  who  had  taken  refuge  up  in  Canada,  Lincoln  saw  the 
humor  of  the  situation  and  he  took  Greeley  at  his  word  and 
appointed  him  on  that  Commission.  Of  course,  Greeley  failed. 
And  Lincoln's  judgment  was  again  vindicated.  When  Valland- 
ingham  in  Ohio  was  tried  for  seditious  utterances  and  sentenced 
by  the  court,  and  was  then  posing  as  what  his  friends  termed  a 
martyr  to  judicial  tyranny,  Lincoln's  humor  again  came  to  the 
relief  of  the  situation.  He  suspended  the  sentence  of  the  court, 
and  he  ordered  that  poor  Vallandingham  be  conducted  to  his 
friends  in  the  South,  where  he  could  rest  in  peace  and  safety 
The  whole  country  laughed,  and  the  danger  was  over. 

Lincoln's  magnanimity  and  humor  often  exposed  the  insincerity 
and  hypocrisy  of  his  foes,  and  yet  no  words  of  ridicule,  no  forms 
of  opprobrium,  no  license  of  cartoon  were  too  great  or  too  bitter 
to  be  used  against  this  gentlest  and  kindest  of  men.  It  is  one 
of  the  strange  characteristics  of  us  American  people,  who  claim 
to  love  fair  play,  that  we  delight  at  times  in  ex  parte  criticisms 
of  our  public  officials,  without  any  knowledge  on  our  part  of  the 
motives  which  actuate  them  or  the  reasons  for  their  judgment. 
"Judge  not,  that  ye  be  not  judged,"  is  too  often  forgotten  in  this 
land.  Eeference  to  this  injustice,  which  at  times  almost  broke 
Lincoln's  heart,  is  made  only  as  an  observation  in  the  treatment 
of  our  public  men  and  a  reminder  that  Lincoln  lived  long  enough 


ADDRESS  OF  HON.  EDWARD  C.  STOKES  177 


to  silence  his  critics  and  his  foes.  London  Punch,  one  of  his 
bitterest  revilers,  wrote  these  four  lines  upon  the  occasion  of  his 
death : 

"Besides  this  corpse  which  has  for  winding  sheets 
The  Stars  and  Stripes  he  lived  to  weave  anew, 
Between  the  mourners  at  his  head  and  feet, 
Say,  scurrile  Jester,  is  there  room  for  you?" 

Ah,  yes,  Lincoln's  charity  was  a  mantle  broad  enough  to  cover 
all.  After  all,  time  is  the  test.  And  Lincoln  has  escaped  oblivion, 
and  his  face  and  his  fame  grow  dearer  and  greater  and  clearer  as 
the  years  roll  on,  just  as  does  Moses  in  Israel  or  Shakespeare  in 
literature,  because  he  was  a  great,  good  man. 

When  the  curtain  fell  upon  that  final  scene  at  Appomattox, 
Lincoln  was  the  supreme  victor  of  the  hour.  He  had  freed  the 
slave.  He  had  saved  the  Union.  He  had  vindicated  his  wisdom 
and  judgment  before  the  world,  and  at  that  moment  he  went 
down  to  Richmond  and  he  walked  up  the  landing  towards  the 
Capitol  Square,  and  as  he  entered  that  square  someone  touched 
him  on  the  arm  and  said,  "Look,  Mr.  Lincoln,  there  is  your  flag 
waving  over  the  Capitol."  Lincoln  looked  up  and  he  saw  the  Stars 
and  Stripes  floating  over  the  house  from  which  Jefferson  Davis 
had  just  fled,  and  a  look  of  ineffable  gratitude  lit  up  his  coun- 
tenance as  he  realized  that  the  consummation  of  his  lifetime  had 
come,  and  that  those  colors  waved  over  the  doom  of  the  Con- 
federacy and  the  triumph  of  the  Union  cause. 

The  circumstances  of  his  death  need  no  review.  Amidst  the 
general  rejoicing  of  his  countrymen,  this  hero  of  peace  and  war 
fell  upon  his  completed  work,  April  14th,  1865;  his  eyelids 
closed,  and  his  head  fell  upon  his  breast  in  peace. 

The  age  of  miracles  we  are  wont  to  say  is  gone,  but  the  age 
of  an  ever-living  personal  God,  who  guards  our  footsteps  as  He 


178  THE   REPUBLICAN   CLUB 

watches  the  spirit's  flight  is  still  our  heritage.  Lincoln's  fame 
and  greatness  and  character  cannot  be  measured  by  human 
standards.  He  came  and  went  as  a  messenger,  and  shall  we  not 
believe  that  that  lowly  babe,  born  out  in  the  wilds  of  the  Ken- 
tucky woods,  was  sent  to  save  the  Union  and  to  free  the  slaves, 
and  that  when  his  work  was  done  God  called  him  back  to  his 
home  in  the  skies? 

All  about  us  are  the  things  he  left.  There's  the  black  man 
and  his  freedom.  There's  the  schoolboy  with  his  declamation. 
There's  the  fireside  circle  with  his  story  and  picture.  There's  his 
greeting  in  the  poet's  lines,  and  his  homely  face  in  the  sculptor's 
art.  There's  the  justice  of  American  institutions  he  regenerated 
and  the  equality  of  privilege  and  opportunity  he  bequeathed. 
There's  his  glory,  shining  in  that  unsullied  flag  that  carried  lib- 
erty to  Cuba  and  a  new  message  of  hope  to  the  brown-skinned 
race  at  Manila,  and  there  above  the  rancor  of  faction  and  the 
tumult  of  debate  is  heard  the  sweet  obligate  of  his  malice  toward 
none  and  charity  toward  all.  The  master  spirit  of  the  republic, 
he  touches  the  cords  of  memory  and  wakes  the  better  angels  of 
our  nature,  the  nation's  vicarious  sacrifice,  his  birth  a  sacra- 
ment, his  life  a  prayer,  his  death  a  benediction. 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

Copyright  1892,  hy  Thomas  Johnson 

FROM  A  PHOTOGRAPH  IN  THE  POSSESSION  OF  L.  E.  CHITTENDEN. 

ETCHED  FOR  THE  REPUBLICAN  CLUB  AND   DISTRIBUTED 

AT  ITS  DINNER  FEBRUARY   12,   1892. 


THE    TWENTY-NINTH 

ANNUAL   LINCOLN   DINNEK 

of  the 

REPUBLICAN   CLUB 

of  the 

City  of  New  York 

At  the  Waldorf-Astoria 

FEBRUARY  12,  1915 


Addresses  of 


HON.  JAMES  R.  SHEFFIELD 


HON.  SIMEON  D.  FESS 


HON.  J.  ADAM  BEDE 


JAMES  B.  SHEFFIELD 

Fire  Commissioner,  New  York  City;  Member  of  New 
York  Assembly;  United  States  Ambassador  to  Mexico 
since  September,  1924. 


ADDRESS    OF 


HON.  JAMES  R.  SHEFFIELD 


Ladies  and  gentlemen,  guests  and  fellow  members  of  the  Re- 
publican Club:  It  is  my  privilege,  on  behalf  of  the  Republican 
Club  of  the  City  of  New  York,  to  bid  you  welcome  to  our  cele- 
bration of  the  birth  of  the  greatest  of  all  Americans — Abraham 
Lincoln. 

For  twenty-nine  years  this  Club  has  met  to  honor  his  memory, 
to  renew  allegiance  to  the  patriotic  principles  for  which  he  lived, 
and  to  keep  unsullied  the  political  faith  in  which  he  died. 
It  was  the  first  institution  of  its  kind  in  the  country  to 
establish  this  annual  custom,  and  it  has  striven  to  make  Lin- 
coln's Birthday,  throughout  the  land,  truly  a  national  holiday. 
It  believes  that  in  all  history,  and  among  all  peoples,  there  will 
be  found  no  other  man  whose  birth,  life  and  death  better  fit  him 
for  a  Nation's  hero,  and  a  Nation's  Saint;  and,  believing  this,  it 
bids  you,  as  you  gather  here  to-night,  to  remember  that  106  years 
ago  to-day  Abraham  Lincoln  was  born. 

His  place  of  birth  was  as  humble  as  that  of  the  Child  of  Beth- 
lehem— a  Kentucky  hovel  in  the  midst  of  a  rude  clearing  in  the 
far-off  edge  of  that  great  western  wilderness,  where  the  mother 
of  a  greater  than  kings  had  scarce  the  comforts  of  a  manger  in 
which  to  lay  her  babe.  His  eyes  opened  only  on  poverty.  His 
preparation,   too,  took  place   in  the  wilderness,   and   the   whole 


182  THE   REPUBLICAN   CLUB 

mighty  purpose  of  his  coining  was  wrought  within  less  than  four 
and  a  half  years.  But,  within  these  years,  he  had  changed  "all 
men  are  created  equal"  from  a  phrase  to  a  living  fact.  He  had 
freed  a  race.  He  had  saved  a  nation.  Truly  the  Eepublican 
Club  of  the  City  of  New  York  does  well  to  strive  to  make  Lin- 
coln's Birthday  a  national  holiday. 

It  is  a  common  saying  that  the  time  has  long  since  passed  when 
any  one  party  can  claim  Lincoln  as  its  own.  I  do  not  agree  with 
that.  I  do  agree  that  only  that  party,  if  such  there  be,  by  which 
our  common  humanity  is  lifted  to  a  higher  plane  and  a  nobler 
purpose,  and  which  struggles  to  maintain  the  political  faith  and 
the  standards  of  constitutional  government  for  which  he  lived 
and  died,  is  entitled  to  claim  as  its  own  the  priceless  heritage 
of  Lincoln's  name.  There  is  such  a  party.  The  presence  here 
to-night  of  two  of  its  youngest  leaders — ^the  Governor  of  New 
York  and  the  United  States  Senator-elect  of  New  York,  as  well 
as  its  elder  statesmen,  to  pay  tribute  to  his  memory,  is  evidence 
that  his  spirit  and  his  teachings  survive  in  and  still  inspire  the 
great  historic  party  which  twice  elected  him  President  of  these 
United  States. 

The  party  and  the  principles  he  believed  in  then  are  the  same 
party  and  the  same  principles  you  and  I  believe  in  to-day.  He 
believed  in  equal  opportunities  for  all  men,  rich  and  poor;  so  do 
we.  He  believed  no  man  should  be  discriminated  against  because 
of  race  or  creed,  or  color;  so  do  we.  He  believed  in  a  protective 
tariff — so  do  we. 

He  believed  in  political  progress,  without  revolution;  so  do  we. 
He  believed  in  a  Constitution,  interpreted  by  the  courts,  and  not 
by  the  mob;  so  do  we.  He  believed  in  leadership  by  the  Ex- 
ecutive, but  never  in  executive  usurpation  of  the  powers  of 
Congress;    so    do   we.      He    believed    in   a    government    for    all 


ADDRESS  OF  HON.  JAMES  R.  SHEFFIELD  183 

the  people,  and  by  all  the  people,  and  so  do  we.  "There  is 
not  a  principle  avowed  by  the  Republicans  to-day,"  said  John 
Hay  in  1904,  ''which  is  out  of  harmony  with  his  teachings  or 
inconsistent  with  his  character."  And  on  the  authority  of  that 
devoted  friend  of  Lincoln,  his  brilliant  biographer,  and  our  Re- 
publican Secretary  of  State — I  rest  my  belief  that  the  Repub- 
lican Party  alone,  for  more  than  half  a  century,  has  kept  the 
Lincoln  faith  and  fought  the  Lincoln  fight. 

And  at  just  this  time,  in  the  history  of  nations,  when  civiliza- 
tion itself  is  on  trial,  and  when  our  own  beloved  country  de- 
mands not  needy  and  deserving  Democrats,  whether  at  the  head 
of  foreign  affairs  in  Washington,  or  at  their  foot  in  San 
Domingo,  but  men  of  serious  minds,  deep  wisdom,  high  ideals, 
and  broad  and  non-sectional  patriotism,  the  people  of  this  coun- 
try will  turn  again,  as  they  did  in  1860,  to  the  party  of  Lincoln, 
not  as  partisans,  but  as  patriots;  not  for  political  advantage,  but 
for  national  honor  and  international  respect. 

It  is  to  this  end,  and  in  the  name  and  spirit  of  Lincoln,  that 
the  Republican  Club  invites  to  this  feast,  irrespective  of  party 
allegiance,  all  lovers  of  the  liberty  and  the  land,  to  save  which 
he  gave  the  last  full  measure  of  human  devotion.  And  in  his 
name  and  spirit  it  cordially  welcomes  back  our  former  comrades 
in  arms.  In  the  words  of  Lincoln:  "May  not  all,  having  a  com- 
mon interest,  re-unite  in  a  common  effort  to  serve  our  common 
country."  Let  us  study  the  causes  of  our  past  party  differences 
as  philosophy  to  gain  wisdom  from,  and  not  as  wrongs  to  be  re- 
venged. In  that  spirit,  let  us  re-unite  with  all,  having  a  com- 
mon interest  in  a  common  effort  to  serve  our  common  country,  to 
re-establish  prosperity  for  business,  sanity  in  government,  safety 
in  finance,  work  for  the  unemployed,  dignity  for  high  office,  re- 
spect for  constitutional  authority  and  for  those  nobler  ideals  and 


184  THE  EEPUBLICAN   CLTTB 

traditions  which  have  been  the  foundation  and  corner-stone  of 
this  great  American  Republic. 

This,  as  I  read  my  Lincoln,  would  be  Lincoln's  way.  It  would 
be  malice  toward  none,  it  would  be  charity  for  all.  It  would 
be  the  triumph  of  Lincoln's  party,  for  the  good  of  the  land  he 
died  to  save. 

And  now,  having  expressed  the  welcome  of  the  Club  and  the 
meaning  of  the  feast,  it  is  my  pleasure  and  privilege  to  extend 
a  welcome  to  the  special  guests  of  the  evening. 


SIMEON  D.  PESS 

Of  Yellow  Springs,  Ohio;  head  of  the  American 
history  department  in  Ohio  Northern  University  from 
1889  to  1897;  director  of  the  college  of  law  1897  to 
1900;  vice-president  of  Ohio  Northern  University; 
called  by  President  Harper  to  the  University  of  Chi- 
cago in  1902;  president  of  Antioch  College,  1907  to 
1917;  vice-president  of  Ohio  constitutional  convention, 
1912;  represented  Sixth  Ohio  District  in  Congress 
from  1913  to  1915  and  the  Seventh  District  from  1919 
to  1923,  63rd  to  67th  Cong):esses,  inclusive;  chairman 
<©f  Committee  on  Education,  member  of  the  Rules  Com- 
mittee and  Library  Committee  in  the  House;  he  was 
aiominated  for  the  United  States  Senate  at  the  Repub- 
lican primary  August  8  and  elected  November  7,  1922. 
Member  of  Interstate  Commerce,  Library,  Printing, 
Contingent  Expenses,  and  Public  Buildings  and 
Grounds  Committees  of  the  Senate. 


ADDRESS   OF 

HON.  SIMEON  D.  FESS 


Mr.  President,  Governor  Whitman,  members  of  the  Republican 
Club  of  New  York  City,  ladies  and  gentlemen :  The  theme  of  Abra- 
ham Lincoln  is  one  quite  inviting  to  me,  before  any  audience, 
but  before  such  an  audience,  in  a  great  metropolis,  made  up  of 
the  representative  men  of  that  city,  and  in  the  interests  of  a 
Club  bearing  the  name  of  the  party  of  which  Mr.  Lincoln  is  our 
first  and  greatest  President — it  is  an  honor  that  is  not  a  small  one ; 
and,  therefore,  I  come  to  you  to  speak  briefly  upon  his  character, 
and  want  now,  at  the  outset,  to  express  my  gratitude  for  the 
honor  that  is  carried  in  this  invitation,  so  to  speak.  Within 
two  months  from  now,  fifty  years  ago,  Abraham  Lincoln  died.  He 
died  at  the  time  when  our  nation  was  divided;  one-half  of  the 
population  desiring  to  crucify  him;  the  other  half  of  the  nation 
divided ;  some  of  them  friendly,  others  unfriendly ;  and  yet,  with- 
in the  lapse  of  a  half  century,  he  has  the  most  loved  name,  and 
is  regarded  as  the  sweetest  character  that  the  new  world  has 
yet  produced.  It  is  a  splendid  tribute  to  Americanism. 
Some  men  are  judged  in  history  by  what  they  say;  others 
are  judged  by  what  they  do;  and  still,  others,  by  what  they  are. 
Mr.  Lincoln,  in  a  peculiar  manner,  might  be  judged  by  all  three ; 
for  it  is  a  paradox  that  this  boy,  who  never  had  had  a  slate,  or 
a  slate  pencil,  as  a  pupil  in  a  school;  who  never  owned  a  lead  pen- 


188  THE   EEPUBLICAN   CLUB 

cil  or  a  piece  of  paper;  who  had  no  chance  to  be  in  school  more 
than  six  months,  all  told,  according  to  his  own  story,  in  the 
providence  of  God,  would  develop  so  that  he  would  speak  the 
purest  English  of  any  man  that  spoke  on  a  political  platform 
in  his  day;  that  is  a  paradox  I  cannot  fully  explain.  His  speeches 
attracted  the  attention  of  the  best  rhetoricians  of  America,  and 
when,  after  one  of  his  speeches,  a  famous  professor  went  to  him 
and  asked  him  about  the  secret,  and  told  Lincoln  that  he  had 
been  going  to  hear  him  from  time  to  time,  and  taking  parts  of 
his  speeches  into  his  rhetoric  class,  the  next  day,  to  use  them  as 
the  finest  specimens  of  English  that  he  had  ever  read,  Mr.  Lincoln 
was  astonished  and  said,  '^Why,  I  did  not  know  I  had  any  such 
power."  Mr.  Lincoln  could  well  be  judged  in  history  by  what 
he  said.  Just  as  he  was  about  to  reach  his  fiftieth  milestone, 
passing  his  forty-ninth  year,  in  that  little  country  city,  out  in 
Springfield,  Illinois,  he  spoke  to  a  convention,  and  there  gave 
utterance  to  a  sentence  which  pronounced  him  at  once,  not  a  man 
of  Illinois,  confined  to  the  limits  of  one  State,  nor  to  the  limits 
of  the  nation,  but  a  man  who  was  quoted  by  the  London  Times, 
and  by  every  great  publication  on  the  continent  of  Europe;  here 
is  the  sentence:  "A  house  divided  against  itself  cannot  stand;  I 
do  not  believe  that  this  government  can  permanently  endure, 
half  slave  and  half  free."  That  proposition  was  spoken  to  a 
convention  that  had  endorsed  him  for  Senator,  for  the  position 
then  occupied  by  Stephen  A.  Douglas.  It  was  pronounced  re- 
volutionary, and  yet  no  man  up  to  that  time  had,  with  such 
prescient  genius,  ascertained  the  inevitable  movement  that  was 
not  to  cease  until  it  was  impossible  for  a  slave  to  stand  under 
the  flag  of  this  country.  It  was  Lincoln  in  1858  who  made  this 
statement.  Four  years  before,  speaking  to  a  great  mass  in  the 
fair  gound,  he  said:    "Broken  by  it,  I  too  may  be;  bow  to  it,  I 


ADDRESS  OF  HON.  SIMEON  D.  FESS  189 

never  will"  —  in  reference  to  slavery.  It  was  in  1854,  when 
forty-five  years  of  age,  that  he  made  that  challenge.  Just 
six  months  after  the  famous  announcement  of  "The  house  di- 
vided against  itself,"  in  a  debate  with  the  Little  Giant  of  the 
West,  he  propounded  this  question:  ''Can  the  people  of  any  terri- 
tory, in  a  lawful  way,  against  the  will  and  wishes  of  any  citizen 
of  the  United  States,  exclude  slavery  from  the  territory  prior 
to  the  formation  of  a  State  constitution?"  "Why,"  his  friends 
said,  "Mr.  Lincoln,  you  must  not  press  that  question;  if  you  do, 
you  never  can  be  elected  to  the  Senate  of  the  United  States." 
Mr.  Lincoln  said,  "Hear  me;  if  Douglas  answers  yes,  he  loses  the 
South;  if  he  answers  no,  he  loses  the  North;  and  if  he  answers 
it,  yes  or  no,  he  will  never  be  the  President  of  the  nation,  and 
I  am  looking  for  bigger  game." 

That  was  in  1858.  In  this  city  that  makes  possible  this  scene 
before  us,  two  years  later,  down  here,  at  Broadway  and  Ninth 
Street,  in  the  Cooper  Union,  Mr.  Lincoln  delivered  what  many 
believe  to  be  the  greatest  speech  of  his  life,  when  measured 
either  from  the  standpoint  of  the  rhetorician  or  the  logician.  No 
man  up  to  that  time  had  put  the  issue  so  clearly,  and  no  man 
ever  put  it  afterward  more  clearly;  and  yet  how  simple:  "If  the 
South  admits  that  we  are  right,  they  could  readily  grant  all  that 
we  ask;  if  the  North  would  admit  that  the  South  is  right,  we 
could  readily  grant  all  that  they  ask;  but  our  believing  slavery 
wrong,  and  their  believing  slavery  right,  is  the  precise  point  upon 
which  turns  the  whole  controversy;  but,  believing  it  wrong,  as 
we  do,  we  can  still  afford  to  leave  it  where  it  is;  but  can  we, 
when  our  votes  will  prevent  it,  allow  it  to  extend  into  new  ter- 
ritory?" That  was  the  issue,  and  it  had  never  been  put  so 
clearly  before.  That  speech  made  Lincoln  the  big  figure  that 
compelled  his  nomination  the  same  year  at  Chicago.     He  was 


190  THE  EEFUBLICAN   CLUB 

elected  on  November  6th  of  that  same  year;  he  went  to  Washing- 
ton by  way  of  New  York;  his  trip  carried  him  via  Cincinnati, 
Columbus,  Pittsburgh,  then  through  Cleveland,  Buffalo,  Albany, 
New  York,  Philadelphia,  on  down  to  Harrisburg,  Baltimore,  then 
to  Washington.  When  he  got  to  Philadelphia  he  was  honored 
by  being  asked  to  raise  an  American  flag  over  Independence  Hall. 
Listen  to  one  sentence  that  he  delivered:  "What  is  the  principle 
that  has  kept  these  States  so  long  together?  It  is  not  the  mere 
fact  of  separation  from  the  Mother  Country,  but  it  is  the  prin- 
ciple found  in  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  adopted  in  this 
hall,  from  which  I  take  my  political  principles,  so  far  as  I  know 
myself,  which  gave  promise,  not  alone  to  the  people  of  this  coun- 
try, but  to  all  the  people  of  all  the  world,  that  ere  long  the 
weight  shall  be  lifted  from  the  shoulders  of  all  men,  and  all  shall 
have  an  equal  chance."  "Now,  my  fellow  citizens,"  he  continued, 
"can  the  nation  be  saved  upon  that  basis?  If  it  can,  and  I  can 
help  to  save  it,  I  am  the  happiest  man  in  it,  but  if  it  cannot,  I 
was  about  to  say,  I  would  rather  be  assassinated  on  this  spot  than 
to  surrender  the  principle."  That  was  the  22nd  of  February, 
1861,  the  anniversary  of  the  birth  of  the  Father  of  his  Country, 
and  but  a  few  days  before  Mr.  Lincoln  was  inaugurated;  and 
when  he  was  inaugurated  on  the  4th  of  March,  speaking  from 
the  east  side  of  the  capitol — think  of  his  words,  and  note  their 
significance:  "We  must  not  be  enemies,  we  must  be  friends; 
though  passion  may  have  strained,  it  must  not  break  the  bonds 
of  our  affection;  the  mystic  cords  of  memory,  stretching  from 
every  battlefield  and  patriot's  grave  to  every  heart  and  hearth- 
stone, all  over  this  broad  land,  will  swell  the  chorus  of  the 
Union,  when  touched  again,  as  it  surely  will  be,  by  the  better 
angels  of  our  nature";  and  yet,  when  he  thus  spoke,  he  was  not 
at  all  undecided  as  to  his  purpose,  but  everybody  knew  that  as 


ADDRESS  OF  HON.  SIMEON  D.  FESS  191 

the  reins  of  government,  or  rather  the  scepter  of  power,  was 
slipping  away  from  the  imbecile  hands  of  his  predecessor,  and 
was  now  held  in  the  hands  of  an  untried  man,  who,  in  due  time, 
as  your  President  has  well  said,  after  only  four  and  a  half  years  of 
trial,  will  prove  him  to  be  the  greatest  executive  probably  that 
our  nation  has  yet  produced,  although  inexperienced  and  untried. 
But  this  utterance,  great  as  it  was,  is  not  the  high  water  mark 
of  the  Lincolnian  expression.  Suppose  you  go  to  the  British 
Museum  to-night,  and  ask  the  authorities  there,  where  there 
are  books  enough  if  put  on  a  single  shelf  to  make  forty  miles 
of  books — what  is  the  finest  short  speech  ever  uttered  in  the 
English  language? — do  not  be  surprised  when  they  hand  it  to 
you;  everybody  will  immediately  recognize  its  source — "Four 
score  and  seven  years  ago,  our  fathers  brought  forth  upon  this 
Continent  a  new  nation,  conceived  in  liberty,  and  dedicated  to  the 
proposition  that  all  men  are  equal."  I  could  quote  that  speech 
in  full  in  three  minutes.  When  Lincoln  finished  it,  Edward  Ever- 
ett, the  orator  of  the  nation,  as  well  as  for  the  occasion,  walked 
over  to  Lincoln,  took  his  hand  and  said:  Mr.  President,  I  cer- 
tainly would  be  a  happy  man  if  I  could  flatter  myself  that  I  had 
put  the  issue  as  clearly  in  two  hours  and  a  quarter  as  you  have 
put  it  in  two  minutes  and  a  quarter."  This  was  Mr.  Lincoln  on 
the  19th  day  of  November,  1863,  on  the  battlefield  of  Get- 
tysburg. What  he  said  is  regarded  as  the  finest  and  shortest 
speech  in  our  language.  But  I  do  not  think  that  the  Gettysburg 
speech  reaches  the  high  water  mark  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  expression. 
Judged  by  the  standard  of  Mr.  Emerson,  that  the  secret  of  an 
orator  must  be  in  the  sentiment  expressed;  if  you  take  that  basis 
of  comparison,  the  second  inaugural  must  be  remembered.  March 
4th,  1865,  just  a  month  and  eleven  days  before  his  life  went  out, 
standing  in  the  same  place  where  he  had  stood  four  years  before, 


192  THE   REPUBLICAN   CLUB 


looking^  back  over  four  years  of  carnage,  where  he  could  have 
counted  2,265  engagements,  in  the  greatest  war  known  to  man 
up  to  that  time,  in  which  millions  of  property  had  been  destroyed, 
600,000  soldiers.  North  and  South,  had  filled  the  graves  that  were 
premature,  because  of  the  struggle;  remembering  that  he  as  the 
speaker  who  was  then  to  address  the  thousands  facing  him  had 
been  called  by  the  orator  from  Boston,  Wendell  Phillips,  "The 
slave  hound  of  Illinois,  whom  we  will  gibbet  by  the  side  of  the 
infamous  Mason  of  Virginia" — this  is  Lincoln  who,  standing  in 
front  of  the  Capitol  on  that  March  noon,  looking  out  over  his 
audience  with  all  of  this  abuse  in  his  mind,  said  what  your 
President  quoted  a  while  ago:  "With  malice  toward  none;  with 
charity  for  all;  with  firmness  in  the  right,  as  God  gives  us  to  see 
the  right,  let  us  go  on  in  this  work  and  finish  it;  bind  up  the 
Nation's  wounds;  care  for  the  fatherless  and  the  widows,  and  for 
the  soldier  who  shall  have  borne  the  brunt  of  battle" — ^that,  in 
my  judgment,  is  the  high  water  mark  of  all  Mr.  Lincoln  ever 
uttered  in  his  life;  it  is  the  inaugural  address  spoken  on  the  4th 
of  March,  1865. 

So,  ladies  and  gentlemen,  when  I  say  he  could  be  judged  by 
what  he  said,  I  have  a  good  basis,  I  think,  for  that  statement; 
and  then,  if  you  would  ask,  can  he  be  judged  for  what  he  did? 
— I  answer,  most  certainly;  but  I  do  not  know  how  to  delineate 
in  brief  his  achievements.  I  do  not  know  that  I  have  heard 
a  more  beautiful,  brief  statement  of  the  achievements  of 
this  man  than  was  given  a  while  ago  by  the  President  of 
your  Club, — it  was  beautiful.  Mr.  Lincoln,  without  educa- 
tion, as  the  world  estimates  that  term,  and  yet  probably  the 
greatest  political  thinker  of  his  day  as  well  as  the  greatest  master 
of  political  utterance — don't  say  he  was  uneducated;  he  was  un- 
educated in  books,  but  I  would  rather  know  men,  and  know  little 


ADDRESS  OF  HON.   SIMEON  D.   FESS  193 

or  nothing  of  books.  I  have  in  mind  some  examples  of  per- 
sons who  know  too  much  theory  and  not  enough  business.  Mr. 
Lincoln  never  would  take  the  position  that  he  should  control 
business,  because  he  had  never  been  in  business,  and  had,  there- 
fore, no  prejudices  against  it. 

The  life  problem  presented  to  Mr.  Lincoln,  before  he  came 
to  his  great  career,  was  such  a  discipline  of  his  power 
that  he  was  prepared  to  do  the  work  that  was  to  come  to 
him  later  on.  He  would  not  be  called  a  great  lawyer,  and 
yet  he  was  a  successful  pleader,  as  the  word  would  go  at 
that  time.  Mr.  Lincoln  would  not  be  called  a  rhetorician,  since 
his  language  was  expressive  rather  than  elegant.  He  did  not 
know  that  he  was  one  of  the  greatest  logicians  of  the  country, 
for  he  expressed  surprise  when  complimented.  He  was  a  logician, 
without  probably  knowing  what  logic  meant.  I  do  not  know 
how  to  explain  it,  but  nobody  could  argue  with  him  vTithout 
discomfiture.  You  remember  he  had  seven  debates  with  Mr. 
Douglas.  In  some  of  those  debates  Douglas  resorted  to  every 
art  known  to  the  barrister.  At  times  he  attempted  to  ridicule 
him.  At  the  close  of  the  first  debate,  the  favorites  of  Lincoln 
hoisted  him  upon  their  shoulders  and  carried  him  from  the 
ground.  Douglas  declared  to  an  audience  the  next  night — the 
debates  did  not  come  in  successive  nights,  but  Douglas  went  on 
making  political  speeches  between  the  dates  of  the  debates,  as 
you  understand,  and  he  referred  to  the  fact  of  Lincoln's  friends 
taking  him  upon  their  shoulders,  and  said  Lincoln  was  so 
badly  defeated  that  his  friends  had  to  carry  him  to  the 
hotel.  Lincoln  at  the  next  meeting,  referred  to  the  report. 
Douglas  said,  ''You  are  too  serious,  I  meant  that  in  humor." 
Mr.  Lincoln  said,  "No,  you  did  not  mean  it  in  humor;  you  meant 
that  the  people  should  believe  it,  and  the  only  way  that  I  can 


194  THE  REPUBLICAN   CLUB 


answer  you  is  to  challenge  this  audience  when  I  get  through 
to-night,  if  I  cannot  pick  you  up  in  my  arms  and  carry  you  to 
the  hotel,  and  put  you  to  bed,  then  you  are  right,  when 
you  said  that  I  had  to  be  carried  off."  Nobody  could  play 
with  Mr.  Lincoln.  Mr.  Douglas  once  said,  "Why,  Lincoln  says 
he  is  an  abolitionist.  The  abolition  party  was  killed  eight  years 
ago,  by  the  fugitive  slave  law,  and  if  he  is  still  an  abolitionist, 
he  is  in  his  tomb."  Lincoln  replied,  "I  want  to  congratulate 
you;  you  are  going  to  hear  a  fellow  talk  from  the  grave." 
Measured  by  what  this  man  did — think  of  the  slavery  issue! 
Going  down  the  Mississippi,  in  his  early  manhood,  and  witness- 
ing a  slave  auction,  he  said :  **If  I  get  a  chance  to  hit  that  thing, 
I  will  hit  it  hard." 

In  due  time  he  reaches  the  Presidency,  and  he  has  his  oppor- 
tunity. Probably  our  country's  greatest  editor,  Horace  Greeley, 
of  this  city,  criticised  Lincoln  pretty  severely  because  he  did  not 
act  quickly  upon  this  sensitive  issue.  Mr.  Lincoln's  reply  to  the 
editor  was  certainly  suf&cient  to  set  at  rest  his  purpose  on  this 
issue.  One  of  the  most  striking  statements  of  his  life,  announcing 
a  great  principle  of  action,  was  at  the  close  of  that  letter,  in 
which  he  said,  "I  will  accept  new  views  as  soon  as  they  are 
proved  to  be  true  views."  Mr.  Lincoln  was  not  hide-bound  upon 
any  particular  theory.  He  believed  in  universal  freedom  and 
yet  he  resisted  Horace  Greeley;  he  resisted  Wendell  Phillips;  he 
resisted  William  Lloyd  Garrison,  the  Tappan  Brothers,  as  he  did 
most  of  the  great  abolition  leaders,  and  still  became  the  greatest 
emancipator  of  the  world.  What  would  have  happened  if  he 
would  have  gone  quickly  with  the  wishes  of  these  people  ?  Why, 
he  would  have  split  the  North,  and  would  have  made  the  pre- 
servation of  the  Union  impossible.  Mr.  Lincoln  said,  "What  I 
do  about  slavery  I  do  because  it  will  help  me  to  save  the  Union; 


ADDRESS  OF  HON.  SIMEON  D.  FESS  195 

What  I  do  not  do  about  slavery,  I  do  not  do,  because  it  won^t 
help  me  to  save  the  Union."  To  this  principle  Mr.  Lincoln 
adhered  and  has  to  his  credit  the  great  achievement  of  not  only 
freeing  the  slave — the  whole  race — lifting  it  out  of  the  chattel- 
hood  of  American  degradation  into  the  atmosphere  of  American 
civilization,  but  he  saved  the  Union  at  the  same  time,  the 
greatest  achievement  in  the  history  of  government.  The 
sensitive  point  in  this  sensitive  question  were  the  four  neutral 
States;  what  are  you  going  to  do  with  Maryland,  Delaware, 
Kentucky,  and  Missouri?  The  way  those  slave  States  were  saved 
from  joining  the  Confederacy  is  due  most  largely  to  the  manner 
and  spirit  of  this  beautiful  soul,  who  would  say,  '^Come,  let  us 
reason  together  about  this  thing."  To  Henry  Davis,  of  Mary- 
land, he  would  say:  "Davis,  hold  Maryland,  hold  Maryland;  if 
you  can  divide  the  South  upon  the  sensitive  question,  the  victory 
is  already  begun."  That  displays  the  genius  of  a  great  states- 
man. If  I  were  to  be  asked  what  is  the  secret  of  his  power,  I 
would  answer  in  the  language  of  one  of  the  world's  greatest 
editors,  who  knew  Lincoln  as  well  as  any  man  living,  in  the 
words  of  Charles  A.  Dana  of  this  city;  Dana  not  only  knew  him, 
but  he  was  most  capable  of  giving  an  opinion.  Dana  said  his 
ability  was  in  his  control  of  men.  He  multiplied  his  influence 
by  the  number  of  men  he  used.  In  this  way  the  distinguished 
New  Yorker,  William  H.  Seward,  was  one  of  the  great  men  that 
became  the  strong  arm  of  Abraham  Lincoln  in  the  Cabinet;  Ed- 
win M.  Stanton,  another,  and  others  like  those  two;  and  when 
Mr.  Dana  told  me  at  one  time — "I,  being  a  student  of  Lincoln, 
sought  for  information  and  desired  it  first-hand" — when  he  told 
me  that  Lincoln  had  controlled  his  Cabinet,  I  said:  "He  certainly 
did  not  control  Stanton,  did  he?  Stanton  was  an  Ohio  man,  and 
we  Ohioans  do  not  think  he  controlled  him — not  because  he  is 


196  THE   REPUBLICAN   CLTTB 

from  Ohio,  mind  you,  but  because  Stanton  seemed  to  have  his 
own  way."  Dana  laughed  and  said,  ''Control  him?  he  would 
just  let  Stanton  blow  and  storm  until  he  blew  out,  and  then  he 
just  wrapped  him  around  his  fingers  like  putty,"  and  I  suppose 
that  is  true;  I  repeat  that  the  control  of  men  was  Mr.  Lincoln's 
great  secret;  what  then  was  the  secret  of  this  ability?  Two 
things,  humor  and  tenderness.  The  most  humorous  character  in 
our  history  in  public  life  and  yet  the  most  beautifully  pathetic 
nature  we  have  known.  Humor — at  one  time  George  B.  Mc- 
Clellan,  thinking  that  Mr.  Lincoln  was  interfering  with  the 
operations  on  the  field,  it  is  said,  sent  this  telegram  to  Presi- 
dent Lincoln,  to  protest  that  he  was  not  free  to  move  in  the 
slightest  item  without  first  getting  instructions.  Let  me  read 
the  telegram,  just  as  tradition  has  reported  it,  in  regular  army 
style:  "Abraham  Lincoln,  President  of  the  United  States,  Com- 
mander-in-Chief of  the  armies  of  the  United  States  of  America; 
My  dear  Sir,  I  have  the  honor  to  inform  you  that  my  army  has 
captured  seven  cows;  what  shall  I  do  with  them?"  The  reply 
was  not  in  regular  army  style,  but  it  was  in  the  Lincolnian  style, 
brief,  and  to  the  point;  here  it  is:  "George,  milk  'em — Abe."  I 
think  that  that  is  the  finest  bit  of  humor  in  the  life  of  Lincoln, 
because  it  turned  the  laugh  upon  the  one  who  had  initiated  the 
quarrel,  and  did  it  without  sarcasm.  If  you  can  do  that  with 
your  opponent,  you  are  a  Lincoln  in  that  much.  It  would 
not  be  fair  to  see  him  on  that  side,  without  seeing  the  other 
side. 

I  was  distressed,  as  the  President  was,  a  while  ago,  and  as  all 
of  you  were,  when  there  was  an  attempt  to  ridicule  Lincoln  in 
this  room.  He  was  not  a  buffoon,  friends;  that  (pointing  to  a  life- 
size  portrait  of  Lincoln  over  the  speaker's  table)  is  not  an  ugly 
face;   that   is   the   most   beautiful   face    in    American    history. 


ADDRESS  OF  HON.   SIMEON  D.  FESS  197 

The  beauty  is  in  the  soul  of  the  man;  it  lies  back  of  that 
rough  contour.  You  see  there  the  sweetest  spirit;  the  deepest 
in  humanity,  the  broadest  in  comprehension,  and  the  sweetest  in 
disposition,  that  ever  functioned  in  American  politics;  and  we  do 
him,  ourselves,  and  the  country  wrong  when  permitting  any  at- 
tempt to  make  him  out  a  buffoon.  Many  people  thought  that  of 
him  in  his  day.  Mr.  Stanton  once  said:  "We  have  got  to  get  rid 
of  this  baboon,"  and  when  it  reached  Mr.  Lincoln's  ears,  what  do 
you  think  he  said — he  laughed  and  said,  "Did  Stanton  say  that?" 
They  said  he  did,  and  one  fellow  said,  "I  would  not  endure  these 
insults."  "Insults,"  said  Lincoln,  "he  did  not  insult  me";  he 
said  "I  was  a  baboon,  and  that  is  a  matter  of  opinion,  sir."  That 
is  another  glimpse  of  the  humor  of  the  man.  The  tenderness — 
how  touching — let  me  give  you  just  one  incident,  and  let  it  go  at 
that.  He  so  frequently  went  through  the  hospital  at  Washing- 
ton to  cheer  up  some  poor  soldier  who  probably  was  dying  by 
inches,  to  say  to  him  some  word  of  comfort.  I  was  speaking 
of  this  at  one  time  when  a  Mr.  Greer,  one  of  my  auditors,  who 
had  been  badly  wounded  in  the  Civil  War,  and  who  was  in  the 
hospital  where  Lincoln  visited.  At  the  close  of  my  address  he 
came  and  said,  "I  will  never  forget  the  first  time  I  saw  Mr.  Lin- 
coln. I  was  in  the  hospital,  right  near  the  entrance,  and  I  must 
have  been  asleep,  for  when  I  opened  my  eyes  there  stood,  bending 
over  me,  a  tall  figure;  and  as  I  opened  my  eyes,  he  took  his 
broad  palms  and  began  to  stroke  both  sides  of  my  face,  talking 
to  me,  asking  me  whether  I  was  suffering;  he  soon  stepped  back 
two  or  three  paces — I  did  not  know  who  he  was.  He  looked  over 
the  cots.  I  will  never  forget,"  said  Mr.  Greer,  "the  tones  of  that 
voice,  and  that  sad  face,  when  he  said,  'My  God,  my  God,  the 
responsibility  of  this  war ;  it  must  rest  somewhere,  if  it  rests  upon 
me,  I  must  have  relief.'  "    My  friend  said,  "The  moment  I  heard 


198  THE  KEPUBLICAN   CLUB 

him  say,  *if  it  rests  upon  me/  it  dawned  upon  me  that  it  was  Presi- 
dent Lincoln.  It  was  too  much  for  me,  and  I  began  to  cry.  Mr. 
Lincoln  noticed  it.  He  immediately  changed  from  a  sad  face  to 
a  face  wreathed  in  smiles,  and  stepped  up  to  me,  and  put  his  left 
hand  upon  his  left  knee,  stooped  over  and  began  to  stroke  my 
forehead  with  his  right  hand,  and  said,  ^Don't  cry,  my  boy;  why, 
you  are  as  tough  as  a  pine  knot;  the  rebels  can't  kill  you;  you 
will  get  out  all  right.' "  This  man  said,  *^That  is  the  medicine 
that  got  me  out  of  that  hospital.  It  was  Lincoln's  *  Tough  as  a 
pine  knot.' "  Here  is  the  place  he  so  often  went — ^it  was  in  this 
hospital  where  this  beautiful  and  pathetic  scene  took  place.  He 
was  spending  some  time  at  the  hospital,  much  of  the  day,  and 
had  just  gone  out  to  get  into  the  carriage,  when  he  was  accosted 
by  someone,  perhaps  a  guard,  who  said,  '^Mr.  President,  in  an 
apartment  you  did  not  visit,  is  a  rebel  soldier.  The  surgeon  says 
he  must  die.  This  soldier  learned  you  were  here,  and  he  wants 
to  see  you."  Mr.  Lincoln  turned  to  the  party  with  him  and  said, 
"Just  wait,  and  I  will  return  soon" ;  he  went  with  the  guard  and 
was  led  to  the  cot  where  the  poor  rebel  soldier  was  dying;  Lin- 
coln took  his  hand,  and  asked  him  what  he  could  do  for  him. 
All  that  the  poor  fellow  said  was,  "I  knew  they  were  mistaken; 
I  knew  they  were  mistaken."  I  presume,  my  friends,  that  that 
soldier  had  been  taught,  as  I  was  taught.  I  was  rocked  in  a 
cradle  in  Ohio,  over  which  was  sung  the  lullaby,  "Old  Abe  Lin- 
coln is  dead  and  gone,  hurrah,  hurrah."  I  am  not  the  only  son 
of  Ohio  who  was  taught  that  he  was  a  traitor.  Many,  many 
people  in  my  own  beloved  State  did  not  understand  him.  This 
poor  fellow  had  been  taught  that  he  must  have  been  a  traitor, 
but  upon  first  sight,  he  broke  out  and  said,  "I  knew  they  were 
mistaken."  When  Mr.  Lincoln  asked  him  what  he  could  do,  he 
said,  "The  Doctor  says  I  cannot  get  well,  and  there  is  nobody 


ADDRESS  OF  HON.  SIMEON  D.  FESS  199 

here  I  know  and  I  wanted  to  see  you."  The  President  said, 
"What  can  I  do?"  He  said,  "I  wanted  to  ask  you  to  forgfive  me 
for  the  part  I  have  taken  in  this  war."  Mr.  Lincoln  said,  *'Ask 
God  to  forgive  you,  my  boy;  of  course  I  will  forgive  you,  but 
ask  Him  to  forgive  you,"  and  at  this  juncture  stooped  to  take 
his  hand  in  the  President's  two  hands,  like  that,  and  said,  "I 
have  been  here  much  of  the  forenoon;  I  am  a  very  busy  man,  I 
must  go.  Is  there  anything  now  before  I  go?"  And  the  dying 
request  of  that  Confederate  soldier  was  made  to  the  President, 
"Oh,  I  thought  if  you  did  not  care,  you  might  stay  and  see  me 
through."  There  stood  the  President  of  this  nation,  with  the 
tears  dropping  upon  his  coat  sleeve;  the  President  of  this  Re- 
public weeping  over  a  dying  Confederate  soldier,  who  had  done 
all  in  his  power  to  clip  the  brittle  thread  of  hope  upon  which  the 
life  of  the  nation  was  suspended — and  the  President  weeping 
over  him  because  he  had  asked  to  be  forgiven.  That  is  the 
pathetic  side  of  Mr.  Lincoln,  and  is  a  beautiful  picture  of  what 
he  was.  If  I  were  a  painter,  I  would  not  paint  Mr.  Lincoln  at  the 
time  when  he  signed  the  Emancipation  Proclamation,  that  is 
great;  but  the  abolition  of  slavery  had  to  come,  and  would  have 
come;  but  the  greatness  of  Lincoln  is  shown  where  this  great 
soul  is  weeping  over  a  dying  rebel  boy.  It  is  a  combirxation  of 
humor  and  tenderness  which  enables  him  to  control  men,  and  is 
the  measure  of  what  he  did. 

May  I  be  indulged,  just  in  a  sentence,  to  say  this? — that  while 
I  have  come  to  speak  to  you  of  Lincoln,  and  must  do  it  briefly, 
though  it  is  a  great  subject,  absolutely  unending,  may  I  say  to 
this  Club,  and  to  your  friends,  that  he  was  the  first  President  of 
the  greatest  political  party  that  is  known  in  the  history  of  Na- 
tions? He  is  our  first  President.  Now,  what  would  he  do,  if  he 
were  here  to-day?     My  first  statement  is  that  he  would  make  a 


200  THE   REPUBLICAN   CLTJB 

sharp  distinction  between  Republican  prosperity  and  Demo- 
cratic psychology, — that  is  the  first  observation  I  make.  He 
would  never  appeal  to  prophesy,  but  he  would  appeal  to  his- 
tory; he  would  not  look  to  promises,  but  he  would  look  to  per- 
formances, and  he  would  at  once  discriminate  between  what  is 
and  what  was;  in  other  words,  national  prosperity  means  the 
Democracy  out  of  business;  Democratic  prosperity  means  the 
country  out  of  business.  Lincoln  would  see  that  distinction; 
and  in  the  language  of  your  President,  so  well  said — ^Lin- 
coln, the  President  of  the  war  time,  when  the  executive  had 
to  be  powerful,  never  forgot  that  the  White  House  was  the  place 
where  the  law  was  to  be  enforced,  while  Capitol  Hill  is  the  place 
where  the  law  is  to  be  made.  He  recognized  that  there  is 
a  difference  between  the  executive  and  the  legislative — the 
one  cannot  be  both  and,  more  than  that,  Lincoln,  while  he 
would  maintain  the  fruits  of  peace,  would  never  have  landed 
our  troops  at  Vera  Cruz,  unless  he  meant  to  do  something 
when  he  got  there.  They  would  not  have  been  marched  up 
the  hill,  and  then  down  the  hill  again.  I  have  a  right  to  speak 
in  this  way,  my  friends,  for  I  am  the  Republican  on  the  floor  of 
the  House,  who,  when  our  troops  were  landed,  spoke  in  an  appeal, 
for  Republicans,  to  desist  from  their  criticism  of  the  Mexican 
policy.  Why?  Because  the  landing  of  the  troops  at  Vera  Cruz 
was  an  act  of  war,  and  we  were  at  war  the  moment  the  troops 
landed.  But  we  went  there — we  don't  know  why;  we  came  back 
— we  don't  know  why.  It  is  "Watchful  waiting,"  we  are  told. 
But  Business  says  it  is  ''Wakeful  watching." 

My  friends,  Mr.  President,  I  do  not  dare  to  get  on  that  theme. 
I  have  been  living  in  Washington,  and  I  become  pretty  intense 
when  I  allow  myself  to  dwell  upon  such  a  national  policy  on  a 
Lincoln  anniversary,  and  so  I  just  bid  you  good-night. 


J.  ADAH  :BEDE 

Bom  on  farm  in  Lorain  County,  Ohio,  1856.  Printer. 
Reporter  on  newspapers  West  and  South.  Member  58th 
to  60th  Congresses.  Engaged  in  farming,  editorial 
work  and  lecturing.    Lives  at  Pine  City,  Minn. 


ADDRESS   OF 

HON.  J.  ADAM  BEDE 


Mr.  Chairman,  Governor,  Senator,  Gentlemen  of  the  Repub- 
lican Club  of  New  York,  and  the  Ladies  in  the  galleries:  In 
addressing  you  at  this  late  hour,  and  after  the  speakers  who  have 
preceded  me,  I  feel  very  much  like  a  humming  bird  among  the 
eagles  of  oratory;  but  I  take  courage,  like  the  young  lady  who 
was  working  for  Mrs.  Pankhurst  in  London.  She  had  been  out 
one  day  doing  a  little  work — she  had  burned  a  duke's  country 
home;  she  had  slashed  a  couple  of  pictures  in  an  art  gallery — 
but  she  really  did  not  feel  that  she  had  done  a  full  day's  work, 
and  she  returned  to  headquarters.  She  was  condoling  with  some 
of  her  co-workers.  They  said,  "Talk  it  over  with  Mrs.  Pank- 
hurst; she  will  not  feel  bad."  She  went  to  the  chief,  Mrs.  Pank- 
hurst, who  said,  ^'You  did  the  best  you  could,  did  you  not,  my 
dear?"  She  said,  "I  certainly  did,  but  don't  feel  satisfied." 
"Oh,"    says   Mrs.    Pankhurst,    "Ask    God,    She   will    help    you." 

I  feel  a  little  bit  like  a  banker  who,  when  a  distinguished 
citizen  came  in  to  open  up  a  new  account,  in  which  there  seemed 
to  be  some  profit  in  prospect,  patted  him  metaphorically  upon  the 
back,  and  said,  "My  dear  Mr.  Jones,  you  must  remember  we  shall 
always  try  to  make  your  interests  our  interests";  and  so  while 
they  have  assigned  me  the  topic  of  patriotism,  I  had  not  known 
it  until  to-night,  and  while  I  shall  touch  upon  that  theme,  I 
shall  also  say  a  few  words  for  your  entertainment. 


204  THE   REPUBLICAN   CLUB 

I  could  not  help  thinking  when  the  Governor  was  speaking 
to  you  of  the  boys  that  come  to  your  great  city  from  the  farm, 
for  I  know  that  New  York  itself  is  largely  made  up  in  its  won- 
derful commercial  capacity  of  boys  who  come  from  the  rural 
districts.  I  feel  sorry  for  any  man  who  is  not  born  on  a  farm. 
I  feel  sorry  for  that  man  who  is  not  reared  on  a  dairy  farm.  I 
feel  sorry  for  that  man,  who,  as  a  boy,  has  never  had  to  go  out 
bare-footed  after  the  cows  on  a  frosty  morning  in  October  or 
November;  who  has  never  kicked  the  cows,  and  made  them 
get  up  and  then  warmed  his  feet  where  the  cows  had  been 
lying  down.  That  is  the  first  lesson  in  American  politics. 
That  is  what  the  Democrats  did  to  us  two  years  ago,  and 
it  is  what  we  are  going  to  do  to  them  two  years  hence. 
We  are  merely  going  to  pass  it  along,  and  I  have  not  come 
here  to  abuse  Democrats.  I  feel  sorry  for  them.  It  is  hard 
enough  just  to  be  a  Democrat,  without  being  abused  for  it.  Now, 
I  believe  in  two  great  political  parties — one  in  power,  and  the 
other  almost  in;  one  running  the  Government,  and  the  other 
watching  it  while  it  runs  it — and  the  reason  I  vote  the  Repub- 
lican ticket,  one  of  the  reasons  is,  because  it  seems  to  me  that 
the  Democrats  make  the  best  watchers — any  way,  they  have  had 
the  most  experience,  and  it  is  everybody  for  his  specialty. 
"Watchful  waiting"  belongs  to  them  and  doing  things  belongs 
to  the  Republican  Party. 

A  friend  of  mine  told  me,  as  a  boy — he  is  now  a  literary  man 
—that  sixty  or  more  years  ago,  up  in  the  back  woods  of  Michigan, 
half  a  dozen  men  were  sitting  around  a  whale  oil  lamp,  and 
wondering  what  they  would  do  for  lights  when  the  whales  were 
all  gone.  They  thought  they  would  have  to  go  to  bed  when  it 
was  dark,  and  be  good;  but  other  things  have  come  along.  The 
world  has  been  illuminated.     Things  are  better  than  they  were. 


ADDRESS  OF  HON.  J.  ADAM  BEDE  205 

and  we  are  going  on  upwards,  and  onwards  to  better  things.  So 
let  us  not  be  disconsolate,  for  the  world  is  getting  better.  Some 
folks  think  it  is  getting  worse,  and  do  you  know  why? — merely 
because  you  read  the  news.  You  get  it  every  day;  if  it  was  not 
censored  in  Europe,  there  would  not  be  an  item  in  the  war  that 
would  not  be  read  every  morning,  within  twelve  hours  of  the 
time  it  happened;  under  ordinary  conditions,  there  is  not  a 
thought  worth  remembering,  born  on  the  face  of  the  earth,  that 
is  not  read  within  twenty-four  hours.  News  consists  largely  of 
things  that  are  written.  A  man  can  live  with  his  wife  for  half 
a  century,  but  they  say  nothing  about  it;  but  if  he  lives 
half  a  day  with  another  woman,  you  read  it  the  next  morning. 
News  consists  of  the  unusual  thing,  and  reading  the  un- 
usual thing.  The  ordinary,  every-day  virtues  of  the  Ameri- 
can people  are  never  printed.  You  would  not  have  time  to 
read  them  if  they  were  printed — there  are  too  many  of  them. 
But  most  of  these  unusual  things  are  things  that  ought  never  to 
happen  at  all,  at  least  from  my  standpoint — the  divorce  cases, 
kidnapping,  scandals,  flying  machine  accidents,  railroad  wrecks, 
mining  disasters — Democratic  victories,  and  things  of  that  sort 
— but  one  by  one  we  eliminate  them,  and  ultimately  the 
world  will  be  even  better  than  it  is  to-day.  I  know  we  are 
drifting  a  little  bit  into  Socialism.  The  President  wants  to  buy 
ships.  My  good  friend,  Mr.  Bryan,  wants  to  buy  railroads  and 
cotton,  and  wants  to  buy — he  wants  to  buy  cotton,  and  in  a  little 
while  you  will  own  pretty  nearly  everything.  Why,  I  have  been 
out  against  Socialists  for  a  year  and  a  half;  I  have  had  150  de- 
bates with  different  distinguished  Socialists  of  the  United  States, 
and  their  whole  plea  is  that  you  are  to  get  what  you  produce, 
or  its  equivalent.  No  man  of  real  genius  can  take  out  of  the 
world  as  much  as  he  puts  in,  nor  ought  he  if  he  could.     There 


206  THE  EEPTTBLICAN   CLUB 

are  so  many  not  capable  of  living  np  to  the  standard  of  producing 
enough  for  them  to  live  up  to  the  American  standard.  Somebody 
must  do  the  surplus  work.  Tell  me,  how  could  you  pay  Abraham 
Lincoln  an  equivalent  of  what  he  did  for  the  American  people 
and  the  world?  How  could  you  pay  William  Shakespeare  for 
his  dramas?  The  Bank  of  England  could  not  pay  in  cash  or 
credit  the  debt  the  world  owes  to  him  for  what  he  did.  You 
could  not  pay  Edison  for  his  inventions,  or  Marconi,  or  any  of 
the  great  intellects  of  the  world ;  and,  as  it  is  with  them,  so  with 
the  great  captains  of  industries;  they  have  been  doing  things, 
too,  and  I  do  not  want  to  mislead  anyone  as  to  my  opinion  on 
those  things.  To  my  mind,  it  is  not  so  much  a  question  of  what 
a  man  accumulates  as  it  is  what  sort  of  a  trust  he  is  for 
it,  after  he  has  accumulated  it.  Someone  told  Napoleon  of 
a  great  victory,  a  great  memorable  victory  that  had  been  achieved 
in  the  history  of  the  world — and  Napoleon  asked,  "What  did  the 
victor  do  the  next  day?"  That  is  the  big  thing— what  do  you 
do  the  day  after  your  victory?  So  it  is  in  political  life;  so  it  is 
in  commercial  life,  as  well  as  in  the  military  field.  It  is  not  how 
much  accumulation,  but  what  sort  of  trustees  are  you  for  it,  after 
you  have  accumulated  it.  Under  Republican  prosperity  no  man 
standing  alone  on  the  map  of  America  could  become  a  millionaire 
by  himself.  It  takes  a  large  population,  even  in  America,  with 
our  productive  power,  to  make  a  millionaire.  Therefore,  society 
owns  an  equity  in  the  fortune  that  he  produces,  in  so  far  as  to 
say  it  shall  be  used  for  the  good  of  society,  and  not  for  its  hurt, 
and,  beyond  that,  we  take  no  interest;  but  up  to  that  point  so- 
ciety has  its  equity,  and  I  think  the  standards  of  our  civilization 
to-day  recognize  it,  and  because  of  that  lifting  it  to  higher  stand- 
ards we  are  going  on  to  greater  achievements.  But  I  did  not 
come  to  talk  to  you  on  that  line;  it  is  only  an  oversight. 


ADDRESS  OF  HON.  J.  ADAM  BEDE  207 

In  1859  a  lawyer  appeared  in  the  court  of  the  State  of  Illinois, 
in  the  interest  of  an  Illinois  railroad,  and  asked  for  the  con- 
tinuance of  a  cause,  because  their  chief  witness,  the  engineer  of 
the  road,  was  not  present.  Two  years  later  the  lawyer  was 
President  of  the  United  States,  and  the  engineer  was  the  Com- 
mander of  the  American  Army.  One  was  Abraham  Lincoln,  and 
the  other  George  B.  McClellan — so  quickly  are  we  transformed 
in  this  wonderful  republic,  that  we  pass  from  the  humblest  posi- 
tion, from  the  humble  captain  and  engineer,  to  the  command  of 
an  army;  from  a  country  lawyer  in  the  backwoods  of  a  county 
in  Illinois  to  the  President  of  the  United  States.  Abraham  Lin- 
coln in  his  life  brought  the  Government  a  little  closer  to  the 
people,  and  in  his  death  he  drew  Heaven  a  little  closer  to 
the  earth;  and  yet,  Lincoln  might  have  lived  and  died,  and 
gone  to  his  reward  without  becoming  to  the  Nation  a  known 
character.  Certain  events  produced  him.  It  could  not  have  been 
without  his  heredity,  perhaps,  without  his  environment;  but, 
certainly  not  without  the  great  events  that  preceded  the  war. 
I  know  that  Daniel  Webster  is  roundly  abused  for  what  is  known 
as  his  7th  of  March  speech;  but  I  doubt,  without  that  speech, 
Abraham  Lincoln  would  have  been  President  of  the  United  States, 
because  you  had  to  hold  back  the  war  for  a  decade;  you  had  to 
have  the  compromises  of  1850;  you  had  to  have  the  repeal  of  the 
Missouri  compromise  of  1854;  you  had  to  have  the  campaign  for 
Senator  in  Illinois;  in  1858  you  had  to  have  the  John  Brown 
raid,  and  the  execution  in  1859,  and  you  had  to  have  his 
lecture  in  the  Cooper  Union  in  the  same  year;  and,  it  was  a 
lecture — not  a  political  speech,  although  he  talked  on  politics. 
But  a  committee  in  your  city,  looking  around  for  someone  that 
could  fill  the  hall  for  a  benefit,  had  the  name  of  Abraham  Lincoln 
suggested,  because  he  had  had  the  debates  with  Stephen  A.  Doug- 


208  THE   REPUBLICAN   CLUB 

las,  and  they  wrote  him  and  told  him  they  would  give  him  $200 
if  he  would  come  and  give  them  an  address,  and  he  came;  and, 
as  has  been  said  to-night,  it  was  the  greatest  political  speech  ever 
made  on  American  soil,  and  all  those  things  led  up  to  the  career 
that  made  him  President  of  the  United  States.  But  you  had  to 
have  also  a  Convention,  held  in  Chicago;  you  had  to  have  a 
stampede  at  that  Convention;  without  all  those  things  it  would 
have  been  a  citizen  of  New  York,  and  not  a  citizen  of  Illinois, 
that  would  have  occupied  the  White  House  between  1861  and 
1865;  and  then,  you  had  all  these  things  to  lead  up  and  bring 
about  the  split  in  the  Democratic  Party;  you  had  to  have  a 
Stephen  A.  Douglas  and  a  few  other  men  like  that,  to  help  to 
break  up  the  party,  so  that  you  could  have  a  Lincoln;  so,  all 
these  things  converged,  and  without  them  Lincoln  would  not 
have  occupied  the  peculiar  niche  that  will  be  forever  his.  For, 
while  Edwin  M.  Stanton  did  once  speak  of  him  as  the  baboon,  in 
the  White  House,  yet  it  was  also  Stanton,  standing  by  the  death- 
bed, that  first  uttered  the  words— "that  now  he  belongs  to  the 
ages." 

But  I  wonder  if  the  people  have  forgotten  the  conditions  of 
the  country  when  Abraham  Lincoln  became  President  ?  We  know 
that  things  went  a  little  bit  slowly  when  he  first  came  in,  but 
do  we  ever  think  why?  After  his  election,  and  preceding  the 
taking  of  office,  a  wonderful  reaction  came  over  the  people  of 
the  United  States.  They  saw  the  Union  breaking  up;  they  saw 
the  Southern  Senators  going  out  from  the  Capitol  of  the  Nation; 
they  began  to  feel  and  tremble,  and  an  amendment  to  the  Con- 
stitution was  offered  in  Congress,  making  slavery  perpetual,  of- 
fered by  men  from  the  North,  passed  by  the  Congress  of  the 
United  States,  submitted  to  the  States  of  the  Union  for  their 
adoption,  adopted  by  the  State  of  Maryland  and  the  State  of 


ADDRESS  OF  HON.  J.  ADAM  BEDE  209 

Ohio,  and  God  knows  how  many  more  States  might  have  adopted 
it,  but  for  the  war  coming  on,  and  the  whole  thing  being  forgot- 
ten. Have  we  forgotten  those  things?  and  do  we  not  know  the 
real  trials  that  Abraham  Lincoln  confronted  when  he  went  to 
the  White  House  on  the  4th  of  March  1861?  An  amendment 
offered  by  the  Northern  people  that  would  make  slavery  per- 
petual, for  the  exact  words  are  these:  "No  amendment  shall  be 
made  to  the  Constitution  which  will  authorize  or  give  to  Con- 
gress the  power  to  abolish  or  interfere  within  any  State,  with 
the  domestic  institutions  thereof,  including  that  of  persons  held 
to  labor  and  service  by  the  laws  of  the  said  State";  so  that  is 
what  Abraham  Lincoln  confronted.  The  whole  of  the  North 
who  had  condemned  Webster  in  1850,  now  went  one  hundred 
per  cent,  further  than  he  did,  and  did  things  that  tied  the  hands 
of  the  President  for  a  time,  until  he  could  bring  back  the  senti- 
ment of  the  Nation  to  act  in  accord  with  his  own  sentiment — for 
Abraham  Lincoln  knew  that  the  Emancipation  Proclamation,  like 
the  Declaration  of  Independence,  was  as  true  one  thousand  years 
ago  as  it  is  to-day — but  what  good  would  it  have  done  to  have 
posted  up  the  Declaration  of  Independence  on  the  forest  trees  of 
Germany,  when  Germania  was  contending  with  the  Romans;  and 
what  would  have  happened  if  President  Lincoln  had  issued  his 
Emancipation  Proclamation  a  year  later  than  he  did?  You  have 
to  do  the  right  thing  at  the  right  time  to  get  results,  political  or 
otherwise,  and  therefore  we  had  this  great,  wise  leader  to  lead 
us  on  to  this  higher  standard,  as  rapidly  as  he  could  lead  the 
people,  for  he  was  convinced  he  had  to  wait  till  the  great  major- 
ity of  the  people  who  had  solved  the  real  problems  of  this  Nation 
could  catch  up  with  him. 

In  1862  he  lost  his  own  State  of  Illinois.    In  fourteen  Congress- 
men only  three  were  elected  favorable  to  him.     Indiana  went 


210  THE   REPUBLICAN  CLUB 

against  him.  Ohio  went  against  him;  Pennsylvania  went  against 
him;  the  State  of  New  York  went  against  him,  and  it  was  only 
the  border  States  of  New  England  that  saved  the  situation  and 
npheld  his  hands.  Therefore,  I  say,  he  had  some  troubles  of  his 
own;  and  even  in  1864 — for  he  was  "a  man  of  trouble  and  ac- 
quainted with  grief" — in  1864,  after  he  had  been  nominated,  he 
might  still  have  been  defeated  for  re-election  had  not  the  Union 
Armies  achieved  great  victories.  The  fall  of  Fort  Morgan,  the 
taking  of  Mobile  in  Alabama,  the  conquest  of  Sherman  in  the 
Shenandoah  valley  and  other  victories  of  that  sort  brought  the 
people  to  their  senses,  to  see  that  Lincoln  was  on  the  right  track, 
to  uphold  his  hands  and  give  him  a  triumphant  return;  but,  let 
us  also  in  passing  remember  that  while  the  tariff  bill  was  passed 
on  the  2nd  of  March,  1861,  signed  by  Buchanan  and  not  by  Lin- 
coln, passed  before  the  war  came  on,  still  they  did  not  have  to 
make  a  general  revision  of  the  tariff  to  meet  even  the  war  ex- 
penses; they  merely  added  internal  taxes  and  fixed  up  a  few 
schedules  of  the  tariff,  and  everything  went  on  because  they  had 
a  Kepublican  tariff  bill  already  adopted.  It  was  along  in  1860, 
if  I  remember  accurately,  the  income  of  this  Nation  was  only 
thirty  million  dollars  and  the  deficit  was  twenty  millions.  Under 
the  last  Democratic  administration  our  total  expenditures  at  that 
time  were  annually  between  fifty  million  dollars  and  sixty  mil- 
lion dollars  a  year,  while  your  City  of  New  York,  I  think,  now 
spends  something  over  two  hundred  million,  but  we  are  doing 
things  that  we  did  not  use  to  do.  The  world  is  moving  at  a  little 
different  standard,  and  we  are  a  little  more  able  to  meet  the 
burdens  of  our  time  than  we  were  a  couple  of  generations  ago. 
Now  as  to  patriotism,  if  I  have  got  to  say  a  word  on  that— the 
best  definition  of  patriotism  would  be  the  life  of  Abraham  Lincoln. 
I  would  call  patriotism,  if  you  had  to  define  it  in  words:  "Edu- 


ADDRESS  OF  HON.  J.  ADAM  B£D£  211 

cated  or  refined  selfishness  as  regards  your  own  country.'*  Patriot- 
ism is  only  a  sort  of  selfishness.  You  like  your  country  better  than 
you  do  the  other  fellow's.  You  do  not  have  to  hate  the  other  fel- 
low's country,  but  you  love  your  own ;  any  more  than  you  have  to 
hate  the  other  woman  because  you  love  your  wife.  But  you  have 
a  kind  of  selfish  interest  in  your  wife  and  your  own  home,  and 
then  your  altruism  reaches  out  over  the  neighborhood;  but  we 
have  been  moving  pretty  rapidly  under  this  Republican  patriot- 
ism in  the  last  fifty  years.  Why,  I  have  lived  about  half  the 
length  of  the  world  myself — I  think  as  many  things  have  been 
done  during  my  life-time  that  have  been  done  in  all  the  history  of 
the  world  before.  Is  it  any  wonder  that  we  occasionally  get  a 
little  dizzy  ?  We  are  going  faster  than  we  can  readjust  ourselves 
sometimes.  That  is  why  we  let  the  Democrats  come  in  to  stop 
it  for  a  little  while.  What  will  to-morrow  be  the  progress 
on  the  farm?  I  can  remember  back  to  the  days  of  the 
scythe  and  the  sickle,  and  all  those  things.  All  those  things  we 
do  not  have  now,  but  in  those  days  a  multitude  of  people  might 
have  starved  in  India  and  we  never  heard  of  it;  and  if  we  had 
heard,  we  were  powerless  to  render  them  aid.  Thanks  to  the 
ocean  cable,  to  the  telegraph,  to  the  fast  steamship;  thanks  to 
the  modern  implements  upon  the  farm  there  is  not  an  acre  of 
ground  on  the  face  of  the  earth  to-day  whose  products  cannot 
feed  the  hungry  on  any  other  face  of  the  earth,  and  it  has  largely 
come  under  the  platform  of  the  Republican  Party. 

Why,  as  I  heard  a  Chautauqua  lecturer  say — he  says,  "In  the 
alphabet  of  agriculture  there  is  no  such  word  as  flail."  We  have 
been  moving  on.  Why,  within — almost  within — my  own  life- 
time we  have  harnessed  the  waters,  and  made  the  remorseless 
flood  our  servant;  or  we  have  congealed  the  waters  into  solids  to 
make  them  serve  the  purposes  of  sanitation  in  their  dormant  state ; 


212  THE   REPUBLICAN   CLTJB 

or  created  it  into  vapor,  to  bear  the  burdens  and  move  the  com- 
merce of  the  world.  We  have  spoken  to  the  storm-stricken  ship 
in  mid-ocean,  and  a  thousand  passing  craft  have  sped  to  its  relief. 
We  have  invented  the  diving  ship  that  traverses  the  very  bot- 
tom of  old  ocean,  and  is  now  employed  as  a  servant  of  destruction 
in  the  greatest  war  on  earth;  and,  leaving  the  domain  of  fish 
and  beast  for  that  of  birds,  we  have  moored  the  biplane  in  the 
golden  Archipelago  of  the  Milky  Way  and  triumphed  in  the 
very  conquest  of  the  air. 

When  I  went  to  Congress  in  1902,  I  voted  for  a  little  ap- 
propriation for  Professor  Langley  to  experiment  with  a  flying 
machine. 

Well,  in  this  wonderful  civilization,  we  have  overtaken  the 
fish  and  beast,  and  we  are  catching  up  with  the  birds.  The 
world  has  been  moving  on,  and  it  is  just  a  little  bit  hard  to 
adjust  ourselves  to  changing  environment,  and  sometimes  we  get 
disturbed;  sometimes  we  vote  the  wrong  ticket;  sometimes  we  sit 
up  and  hate  our  neighbors.  I  went  around  this  country  two 
years  ago,  handing  out  the  wisest  kind  of  advice,  very  little  of 
which  was  consumed  at  that  time,  but  they  will  eat  out  of  my 
hand  in  another  two  years. 

We  have  got  all  kinds  of  legislation  in  the  West.  I  notice 
that  up  in  Michigan  a  bill  has  just  been  introduced  fining  any 
woman  under  forty  years  of  age  who  wears  false  hair,  or  puts 
powder  on  her  face.  Where  is  she  going  to  put  her  powder? 
Out  in  Wisconsin  they  have  a  eugenic  law  there.  I  have  never 
read  it  carefully,  but  I  am  told  they  require  every  knock-kneed 
man  to  carry  a  bow-legged  girl,  and  if  that  is  not  patriotism 
what  is  it? 

I  was  home  for  Christmas.  Talking  about  thinking  in 
Continents,   I   have   been   all   over   the    United    States,    spoken 


ADDRESS  OF  HON.  J.  ADAM  BEDE  213 

in  every  State  where  they  would  listen  to  me,  and  in  keep- 
ing with  the  introduction  of  your  Chairman  —  I  have  had 
children  born  in  most  of  the  States  of  the  Union.  When  I 
was  home  for  the  Christmas  holidays,  I  said  to  one  of  my 
little  girls— (Cries  of  "What  State?")— Someone  says,  "Which 
State?"  Well,  it  is  a  kind  of  Lone  Star  State,  the  North  Star. 
I  said  to  my  little  girl,  "I  see  that  the  roses  are  not  blooming 
like  they  were  when  I  went  away;  what  is  the  matter  with 
them?"  I  said.  "Oh,"  she  said,  "You  are  just  joking;  you  know 
roses  cannot  bloom  in  the  winter  time  in  Minnesota."  "Well,"  I 
said,  "I  do  not  know  about  that."  I  said,  "If  the  rose  bush  was 
not  rooted  to  the  earth,  if  when  it  saw  the  cold  weather  coming, 
it  could  get  up  and  walk  to  the  house,  and  sit  down  by  the  fire- 
side, and  look  out  of  the  window  on  the  sunlight,  it  would  bloom 
in  the  winter  time."  I  said,  "Do  you  know  what  is  the  matter 
with  the  rose  bush — it  cannot  adjust  itself  to  the  wonderful  en- 
vironment of  Minnesota;  the  seasons  come  too  swift;  so  it  waits 
till  the  sun  comes  back  in  the  spring  and  then  it  blooms  again," 
and  do  we  carry  out  the  lesson  I  told  here,  that  all  that  was 
the  matter  with  man  and  woman  was  their  adjustment  to  their 
environments.  If  we,  too,  were  tied  down,  if  we  had  to  remain 
like  the  rose-bush  out  on  the  landscape,  we,  too,  would  perish; 
but  it  is  because  of  our  ability  to  adapt  ourselves  to  the  wonder- 
ful environment  that  we  endure  in  this  wonderful  civilization. 
If  every  time  a  new  machine  is  invented  that  distributes  Capital 
and  Labor,  we  can,  without  discontent,  and  without  hate,  adjust 
ourselves  to  a  new  environment  that  can  be  produced,  you  will 
lift  your  civilization  up,  and  you  go  on  to  further  conquests,  but 
if  you  cannot  adjust  you  are  going  to  die,  and  it  is  not  only  true 
physically,  but  it  is  true  spiritually,  and  the  reason  that  Abra- 
ham Lincoln  is  living  in  glory  to-day  is  because  he  could  adapt 


214  THE   REPUBLICAN   CLTJB 

himself  to  a  spiritual  environment.  He  lived  that  life;  he  was 
in  touch  with  the  environment  produced  by  the  Creator  of  all 
things,  and  only  in  that  way,  by  adjusting  ourselves  to  worldly 
and  spiritual  environments,  shall  we  receive  the  better  life  here 
and  the  higher  life  which  we  trust  is  yet  to  come. 

Now,  I  did  not  intend  to  speak  too  seriously.  I  wanted  to  say 
there  are  a  few  things  yet  to  be  done.  I  was  holding  a  debate, 
as  I  said,  with  a  Socialist,  and  speaking  of  such  men,  as  I  see 
here  to-night- — wealthy  men,  I  presume  you  are  —  why,  the 
Socialist  said,  **Talk  about  such  men  as  that,"  naming  a  few 
very  wealthy  men,  he  said,  "When  they  die  you  won't  have  to 
bury  them"  —  he  said,  "They  are  so  crooked  that  you  can 
screw  them  into  the  ground;"  but  I  think  that  the  wealthy 
men  of  this  Nation  are  thinking  to-day  as  they  never  thought 
before.  They  are  meeting  and  solving  the  great  problems  of  this 
great  republic;  they  have  a  high  patriotism;  there  is  more  of  it 
to  the  square  mile,  there  is  more  of  it  in  proportion  to  the  popu- 
lation in  America  to-day  than  ever  before  in  its  history.  You 
only  need  to  strike  the  pipe  and  the  patriotism  will  demonstrate 
itself.  The  world,  as  I  have  said,  is  moving  on.  It  was  by  the 
firesides  of  Dixie  and  Pennsylvania  and  New  York  and  New  Eng- 
land that  American  liberty  found  its  first  birth,  and  came  to  full 
fruition,  and  it  is  by  the  twenty  million  firesides  in  this  great 
land  to-day  that  American  problems  and  American  patriotism 
must  be  worked  out,  and  the  destiny,  not  only  of  our  Nation, 
but  of  the  world,  be  determined. 

But  just  let  me  say  in  closing  that  if  there  were  only  grown 
folk  in  America  our  patriotism  might  die  away;  but  so  long  as 
we  have  one-fourth  of  our  population  in  public  and  parochial 
schools  and  college  halls  there  can  come  no  danger.  If  we,  who 
are  older-grown,  forget  the  lessons  of  liberty,  they  are  learning 


ADDRESS  OF  HON.  J.  ADAM  BEDE  215 

them  anew.  They  have  upon  their  room  walls  the  portraits  of 
all  the  heroes.  They  see  Washington  at  Cambridge;  they  see  him 
at  Valley  Forge;  they  see  him  at  Yorktown;  they  see  him  cross- 
ing the  Delaware.  They  see  him  on  all  the  battlefields  of  the 
Revolution,  but  best  of  all,  they  see  him  in  the  dignified  retire- 
ment in  Vernon  as  he  beholds  the  waving  flag  of  Old  Glory  above 
the  Capitol. 

They  drink  in  the  inspiration  of  the  fathers,  and  they  know 
why  this  Nation  was  born.  They  see  Lincoln  at  Gettysburg,  with 
face  sad  but  sanctified,  as  he  tells  the  world  the  story  of  Govern- 
ment by  the  people  and  for  the  people.  They  have  seen  here  for 
the  last  time  upon  this  Continent  the  clanking  chains  of  slavery, 
now  stricken  from  every  limb,  and  they  know  why  this  Nation 
has  fought  and  lived.  They  see  Dewey  at  Manila,  and  Sampson 
at  Santiago.  They  see  the  Stars  and  Stripes  as  the  Emblem  of 
love  and  liberty,  floating  above  the  crumbling  castles  of  hate; 
they  hear  the  groans  of  despotism,  and  they  know  why  this  Na- 
tion shall  never  die. 

"Columbia,  to  glory  arise, 

The  Queen  of  the  World  and  the  child  of  the  Skies. 
Thy  genius  commands  thee  with  raptures  behold, 
While  ages  on  ages  thy  splendors  unfold.*' 


THE    THIRTIETH 

ANNUAL   LINCOLN   DINNEE 

of  the 

EEPUBLICAN   CLUB 

of  the 

City  of  New  York 

At  the  Waldorf-Astoria 

FEBRUARY  12,  1916 


Addresses  of 

HON.  JAMES  R.  SHEFFIELD 

REV.  S.  PARKES  CADMAN,  D.D. 


ADDEESS    OF 

HON.  JAMES  R.  SHEFFIELD 

Ladies  and  Gentlemen,  Guests  and  Feliow-members  of  the  Kepub- 
lican  Club: 

We  meet  in  memory  of  Abraham  Lincoln. 

In  his  name,  and  on  behalf  of  the  Republican  Club  of  the  City 
of  New  York,  I  bid  you  cordial  welcome. 

Of  all  our  national  heroes,  he  is  the  one  we  love  best.  Of  all 
our  public  holidays,  his  birthday  is  the  most  truly  American. 
Of  all  the  noble  things  for  which  this  Club  has  stood,  nothing 
reflects  greater  honor  upon  it  than  this  annual  commemorative 
feast.      For  this  is  its  thirtieth  consecutive  Lincoln  Dinner. 

If  it  had  done  nothing  more  than  inaugurate  this  custom,  now 
followed  throughout  the  land,  the  Republican  Club  would  have 
justified  its  existence  and  won  an  enduring  place  in  the  halls  of 
fame. 

But  it  did  far  more  than  that.  It  was  upon  the  petition  and 
urgent  insistence  of  this  Club  that  this  day  was,  in  1896,  made  a 
legal  holiday  in  the  State  of  New  York,  and  it  was  largely  through 
its  initiative  and  effort  that  over  twenty  commonwealths  have 
now  declared  the  12th  of  February  to  be  a  legal  Saint^s  day. 

It  seems,  therefore,  especially  appropriate  that  we  should  gather 
at  the  invitation  of  the  Republican  Club.  In  no  spirit  of  vain 
glory,  but  of  honorable  pride ;  in  no  spirit  of  partisan  advantage, 


220  THE   KEPUBLICAN   CLUB 

but  of  deepest  patriotism,  it  welcomes  to  this  feast  all  lovers  of 
Lincoln  and  of  the  liberty  and  union  to  which  he  gave  the  last 
full  measure  of  human  devotion. 

It  believes  that  the  setting  apart  of  one  day  in  each  year  to 
enable  men  to  rivet  attention  upon  what  he  did  and  what  he  was 
would  make  better  Americans  of  us  all,  no  matter  from  what 
racial  stock  we  spring,  from  what  shores  we  come,  or  under  what 
party  banners  we  march. 

It  is  not  amid  the  clashing  interest  of  men,  the  activities  of 
trade,  the  noise  of  machinery,  or  the  clinking  of  gold,  that  pat- 
riotism is  fostered  and  love  of  country  made  supreme.  It  is  only 
when  the  hum  of  industry  is  stilled,  when  the  banks,  the  shops, 
the  busy  marts  of  trade,  the  offices,  the  courts  and  the  schools 
are  closed,  when  men  are  freed  from  the  engrossing  cares  and 
duties  of  the  hour,  that  opportunity  is  given  to  think  deeply  of 
God  and  country  and  our  obligations  to  each.  It  is  only  at  such 
a  time  that  men,  recalling  his  life  and  his  death,  may  commune 
with  the  great  spirit  of  Lincoln,  and,  in  the  silence  of  a  world 
at  rest,  almost  hear  the  anguished  heart-beats  of  this  human 
savior  of  a  race. 

It  is  then  that  the  laborer,  released  from  his  daily  toil,  may 
remember  what  Lincoln  did  to  make  labor  free;  that  youth  may 
learn  the  lessons  taught  by  the  majesty  of  his  life  and  the  mar- 
tyrdom of  his  death;  that  wealth  and  power  may  pause  to  be 
dedicated  anew  to  the  keeping  of  this  land  a  land  of  equal  op- 
portunity and  equal  rights  for  all  men,  rich  and  poor,  and  that 
all  of  us,  on  this  one  day  of  each  year,  may  assemble  together 
and  search  our  consciences  to  see  if  we  are  striving  to  make  THE 
America  we  possess  worthy  of  THE  America  he  died  to  save. 

And  so  we  hold  this  Lincoln  Dinner;  and  we  here  each  year 
repeat  the  story  of  his  life, — not  because  it  is  not  fully  known 


ADDRESS  OF  HON.  JAMES  R.  SHEFFIELD  221 

to  all  men,  but  because  it  is  one  of  the  two  great  stories  the 
world  never  tires  of  hearing  and  that  never  grows  old. 

There  are  characters  of  whom  the  last  word  will  never  be  said. 
For  twenty  centuries  the  civilized  world  has  listened  with  rapt 
attention  to  the  oft-repeated  story  of  the  cross,  and  yet,  at  the 
end  of  almost  two  thousand  years,  the  story  of  His  life  still  thrills 
the  multitude,  and  the  symbol  of  His  death  still  points  humanity 
to  heaven. 

There  is  mystery  as  well  as  majesty  in  true  greatness.  Sim- 
plicity is  an  attribute  of  the  strongest  man  and  the  sweetest 
child.  He  who  possesses  all  of  these  will  forever  be  an  inspira- 
tion for  the  songs  and  eloquence  of  mankind. 

It  is  no  disparagement  of  the  age  in  which  Lincoln  lived  that 
his  true  greatness  was  not  seen  until  his  death.  The  processes 
of  growth  in  blades  of  grass,  in  flowers  of  the  field,  in  trees  of 
the  forest  and  in  the  children  of  men,  are  hidden  from  our  eyes. 
We  sometimes  see  only  when  the  product  is  ready  for  the  reaper. 
We  miss  the  plant  until  the  flower  unfolds.  We  vaguely  saw 
the  forest,  but  we  did  not  see  the  tree  until  its  stately  top  ap- 
peared above  its  fellows,  and  even  then  its  full  stature  was  only 
known  when  the  woodsman's  axe  had  lain  the  giant  prone  upon 
the  earth. 

As  the  tenderest  wild  flower  may  spring  up  amid  the  desola- 
tion of  a  wilderness,  as  the  rarest  orchid  may  grow  upon  the 
trunk  of  a  dying  tree,  as  the  noblest  pine  may  start  within  the 
crevice  of  a  rock,  so  the  fairest  flower  of  civilization  and  man- 
hood may  start  in  a  wilderness,  surrounded  by  poverty  and 
nurtured  by  want.  So  it  actually  did  start  in  the  silence  of  a 
great  wilderness  107  years  ago  to-night. 

I  like  to  think  upon  that  lowly  beginning,  not  because  it  was 
so  humble,  but  because  it  was  so  in  keeping  with  the  great 


222  THE   REPUBLICAN   CLUB 

mother-heart  of  nature  when  she  plans  her  mightiest  triumphs. 

And  as  he  began  so  he  grew.  Strength  is  the  result  of  effort. 
Fettered  by  no  luxury,  bare-footed,  bare-headed,  bare-handed,  he 
fought  and  struggled  with  man  and  nature,  up  through  the 
growing  years,  until  the  wild  plant  of  a  Kentucky  forest  blos- 
somed into  the  perfect  flower  of  a  completed  manhood,  and  mind 
and  body  and  spirit  were  ready  for  the  supreme  test. 

Who  cares  now  that  his  walk  was  awkward  and  his  features 
plain?  We  remember  only  that  the  homely  beauty  of  that  face 
was  indelibly  stamped  with  the  soul  of  the  Creator,  and  his 
awkward  but  never-faltering  footsteps  led  a  people  to  the  saving 
of  a  nation  and  the  freedom  of  a  race. 

Such  was  Abraham  Lincoln.  His  life  and  his  memory  now 
belong,  as  Stanton  said  "To  the  ages.'^  As  he  lived  for  all  men 
and  for  all  time,  no  one  people,  no  one  age,  and  no  one  Party, 
can  ever  claim  him  as  exclusively  its  own.  But  the  precious 
inheritance  of  the  political  doctrines  in  which  he  believed,  the 
political  principles  for  which  he  fought,  and  the  Party  faith  in 
which  he  died,  rests  as  a  sacred  trust  upon  the  Kepnblican  Party 
alone. 

This  is  a  Government  of  law  administered,  not  by  men,  but  by 
parties.  Every  free  representative  Eepublic  is  ruled  by  Party 
Government.  Philosophers,  reformers,  and  many  men  who  are 
neither,  would  have  it  otherwise.  But  facts  are  stubborn  things, 
especially  in  a  Republic — and  two  parties,  one  dominant  and  the 
other  almost  dominant,  are  among  the  established  facts  to  be 
reckoned  with  when  your  business  is  the  government  of  Repub- 
lics.   Lincoln  knew  these  truths  far  better  than  most. 

It  was  just  sixty-six  years  ago,  the  27th  of  this  month,  that 
Lincoln  made  his  memorable  address  in  Cooper  Union.  He  spoke 
as  patriot  and  American,  but  he  also  spoke  as  a  Republican.    And 


ADDRESS  OF  HON.  JAMES  R.  SHEFFIELD  223 

this  Club,  true  to  its  traditions,  fearlessly  maintains  that  the 
Party  to  which  Lincoln  appealed  from  the  platform  of  Cooper 
Union  was  his  Party  then,  and  it  is  ''his'*  Party  now. 

Through  victory  and  defeat,  in  spite  of  abuse  from  without 
and  betrayal  from  within,  caring  little  who  carried  the  banners, 
so  long  as  they  beckoned  humanity  sanely  onward  and  upward,  to 
a  high  political  plane  and  a  nobler  national  life,  this  Republican 
Party  is  the  only  one  that  through  all  its  history  has  never  lost 
touch  with  Lincoln. 

It  is  the  same  Party  that  twice  elected  him  President  of  the 
United  States;  that  unwaveringly  upheld  his  efforts  through 
four  awful  years  of  civil  war;  that  stood  back  of  and  made  ef- 
fective the  Emancipation  Proclamation;  that  for  the  first  time 
in  history  made  good  in  fundamental  law  the  paper  declaration, 
''All  men  are  created  free  and  equal,''  and  has  continued  to  make 
good  that  declaration  in  every  State  in  the  Union  where  that 
party  has  held  control;  that  with  "malice  toward  none"  bound 
up  the  Nation's  wounds  and  fulfilled  with  honor  every  national 
obligation  at  home  and  abroad ;  the  same  Party  that  has  ever  been 
guided  by  his  teaching;  inspired  by  his  example  and  the  first  to 
do  reverence  and  honor  to  his  imperishable  meipory. 

It  faces  to-day,  as  it  faced  in  1860,  a  Presidential  election. 

It  sees  again  dangers  to  the  Republic,  peril  to  our  national 
interests,  and  free  government — here  and  elsewhere  throughout 
the  world — on  trial  for  its  very  life. 

Is  it  mere  chance  that  it  goes  again,  as  it  did  in  1860,  to 
that  City  on  the  shores  of  Lake  Michigan  where  it  first  nomi- 
nated Lincoln,  there  to  re-write  the  old  confession  of  Party  faith, 
and  to  choose  from  its  own  Party  membership  one  who  will  re- 
establish the  Presidential  dynasty  of  Abraham  Lincoln? 

Oh,  Lincoln!     Abraham  Lincoln!     When  the  great  Party  of 


224  THE   REPUBLICAN   CLUB 

your  love  and  your  allegiance  meets  in  June  in  the  City  of  Chi- 
cago, may  it  still  be  guided  by  your  spirit  and  inspired  by  your 
example!  May  it  realize  that  in  doing  honor  to  your  memory  it 
will  do  honor  no  less  to  its  history  and  itself!  Following  your 
teaching,  it  will  reaffirm  its  belief  in  the  things  that  have  made 
this  country  great,  and  this  people  free.  It  will  make  clear  its 
purpose  that  no  man  or  group  of  men,  however  great,  can  jeop- 
ardize the  liberty  of  any  other  man,  however  weak,  and  that 
above  the  hissing  of  traitors  at  home,  or  the  roar  of  artillery 
abroad,  shall  be  heard  the  voice  of  America  demanding  from  a 
world  in  arms  that  its  honor  be  maintained  and  its  every  right 
respected. 


EEV.  S.  PABEES  CADMAN 

Pastor  of  the  Central  Congregational  Ghnrcli,  Brook- 
lyn. Born  in  England,  and  worked  in  the  coal  mines 
as  a  young  man.  Hethodist  minister.  Noted  author, 
scholar  and  orator. 


ADDRESS   OF 


REV.  S.  PARKES  CADMAN,  D.D. 


Mr.  Toastmaster,  Governor  McCall,  fellow-gnests,  ladies  and 
gentlemen:  To  pass  from  the  vexed  affairs  of  a  ravaging  catas- 
trophe to  the  historic  memory  of  Lincoln  is  as  if  one  were  sud- 
denly transferred  from  the  heat  and  clamor  of  a  crowded  assembly 
to  the  lofty  summit  of  the  mountains;  the  ocean's  grey  expanse 
breaking  at  their  base,  the  silent  stars  burning  in  the  vaults 
above.  Those  who  speak  of  him  have  been  extensively  antici- 
pated; they  are  gleaners  in  fields  from  which  much  has  been  al- 
ready reaped.  The  most  sagacious  and  discerning  minds  at  home 
and  abroad  have  scrutinized  his  every  phase;  some,  with  a  keen 
sympathy  for  the  man  and  his  policies  which  hampered  judicial 
estimal;e;  others,  with  an  aversion  for  them  which  disfigured 
their  reckonings;  none  with  that  confessed  superiority  that  could 
adequately  measure  his  elusive  genius.  There  is  no  truly  great 
and  satisfactory  biography  of  Lincoln.  Nor  is  there  likely  to  be 
until  the  writer  shall  appear  who  can  do  for  him  a  similar  work 
to  that  done  by  Carlyle  for  Cromwell.  The  epoch  in  which  he 
became  the  transcendent  figure  projected  its  hate  and  discord  into 
succeeding  eras.  Although  a  kindlier  sentiment  prevails  now, 
and  none  save  minor  and  useless  attempts  are  made  to  influence 
history  against  him,  the  difficult  role  he  undertook  was  not  vcdth- 
out  risks  to  his  reputation.     He  did  not  reach  his  present  emi- 


228  THE   REPUBLICAN   CLUB 

nence  in  a  semi-miraculous  way.  The  fate  of  those  who  essay 
radical  changes  by  enforcing  unwelcome  truths  was  visited  on 
him.  If  ardent  supporters  idealized  him,  opponents  equally  ar- 
dent heaped  venomous  misrepresentation  on  his  public  acts.  Men 
who  had  been  deprived  of  economic  privileges  in  their  essence 
unjust  and  unholy  assailed  him  with  fanatical  virulence.  They 
specifically  resented  his  sturdy  belief  that  liberty  was  an  essential 
part  of  the  good  of  everything;  a  belief  which  animated  his 
wisest  statesmanship  and  prevented  him  from  making  shipwreck 
of  his  personal  honor.  To  it  can  be  ascribed  his  inflexibility 
against  festering  iniquities  inflicted  upon  the  helpless  and  en- 
slaved, whose  lot  was  our  standing  reproach  among  the  nations. 
It  directed  him  with  commanding  simplicity  until  through  sac- 
rifice he  attained  a  sufficient  habitation  for  his  purposes,  and 
consummated  them  in  the  largest  fashion  available.  It  won  for 
him  the  approval  of  his  own  and  of  the  universal  conscience. 
His  final  months  brought  a  certain  grandeur  to  the  predestined 
martyr,  who  gathered  to  himself  in  the  sunset  hour  those  asso- 
ciations which  have  made  his  name  the  treasured  heritage  of  a 
people  exceptionally  rich  in  such  bequests.  He  escaped  the  con- 
tempt of  the  enemy  and  obtained  the  world  for  his  tomb,  though 
he  needed  neither  tomb  nor  epitaph  to  proclaim  a  life  than  which 
no  braver  nor  better  glows  in  the  golden  roll  of  American 
publicists. 

We  complain  of  the  indifferent,  listless,  ignorant  multitudes 
which  do  not  know  how  they  inherited  freedom.  But  as  touch- 
ing Lincoln  they  have  never  been  apathetic  nor  inarticulate. 
Public  opinion  has  moved  in  swift,  warm,  living  currents  around 
his  memory.  Every  instinct  of  justice  and  mercy  has  added  to 
their  impetus.  Domestic  provincialism  could  not  retard  them. 
It  is  commonly  agreed  among  English-speaking  races  and  races 


ADDRESS  OF  REV.  S.  PARKES  CADMAN,  D.D.  229 

which  do  not  speak  English  that  no   other   magistrate  of   his 
century,  and  few  indeed  of  any  century,   exceeded  Lincoln  in 
their  contribution  to  social  progress  and  betterment.     Gladstone, 
who   democratized  an  Empire;  Bismarck,  who  inaugurated  the 
stern  methods  which  are  now  being  tried  out  in  blood  and  fire; 
Cavour,  who  recreated  a  nation;  Webster,  who  expounded  our 
constitutional  doctrines  with  rare   dignity  and   force,   have  no 
such  right  and  title  as  Lincoln  has  received  in  the  development 
of  the  higher  civilization.     European  chancelleries  acknowledge 
his  authority.     The  Premiers  of  Great  Britain  invoke  his  pre- 
cedents in  behalf  of  their  propositions.     The  literary  and  polit- 
ical circles  of  England  hold  him  in  reverence.     *'The  London 
Times"  and  ''The  Spectator"  quote  his  speeches.     The  plain  folk 
indorse  his  interpretations  of  democracy  as  understood  not  alone 
by  us,  but  by  Christendom's  faithful  devotees.     His  words  have 
gone  out  to  the  ends  of  the  earth:  they  bid  fair  to  survive  all 
else  connected  with  the  Civil  War.    Their  seed  is  in  themselves, 
the  appreciation  and  respect  with  which  they  are  treated  is  per- 
haps the  most  moving  tribute  to  his  worth. 

Simply  to  discover  how  he  came  to  this  distinction  involves 
many  factors  we  have  not  time  to  discuss.  His  main  lines  of 
genealogy,  the  limitations  and  discipline  of  his  environment,  the 
theories  he  accepted,  and  how  they  moulded  his  action,  the  mo- 
tives at  the  root  of  his  steadfast  intentions,  the  constant  inter- 
ference of  obscure  poverty  followed  by  unused  prominence,  and 
above  the  rest,  a  vivid  realization  of  the  unbroken  continuity  of 
his  career,  are  prime  requisites  in  an  accurate  portrayal  of  the 
man.  As  we  survey  these  causes  and  effects  we  are  conscious 
that  whatever  leaps  to  light  he  never  shall  be  shamed.  Distin- 
guished personalities  frequently  pain  and  disappoint  us  on  nearer 
view.     We  are  exhorted  to  spread  the  mantle  of  charity  over 


230  THE  BEFXJBLICAN  GLTTB 

their  shortcomings,  to  avow  that  the  king  can  do  no  wrong. 
To  set  down  what  they  actually  were,  without  fear  or  prejudice 
is  a  thankless  but  wholesome  task.  It  dwarfs  heroes,  robs  char- 
acter of  a  spurious  greatness,  shows  the  leprosy  beneath  the  pur- 
ple. Yet  the  disillusionment  is  just  and  beneficial.  To  avoid 
the  truth  is  always  an  expensive  offense.  Fortunately  for  us, 
this  proud  natal  day  brings  with  it  little  to  blame,  much  to 
praise,  more  for  which  to  be  thankful  to  the  gift  and  the  Giver. 
Even  his  failings  leaned  to  virtue's  side.  A  calm  retrospect 
leaves  us  vindicated  in  our  nobler  beliefs.  The  fierce  light  which 
beats  upon  every  nook  and  cranny  of  his  being  reveals  nothing 
which,  in  the  severer  sense,  is  detrimental.  His  conquest  was 
the  prize  of  his  courage.  Underneath  his  humane  complacency 
lay  a  fortitude  which  grappled  with  adverse  circumstances,  and 
wrung  out  of  them  his  opportunities.  His  earnestness  was  moral, 
still  more  so  was  his  abhorrence  of  oppression.  He  did  not  shrink 
from  the  hazards  of  conflict,  nor  from  the  confessions  of  defeat. 
The  temper  which  brought  creeds  to  the  test  of  practice  made 
him  oblivious  to  affront.  To  attempt,  to  persist,  to  stand  in  his 
own  place,  and  having  done  whatever  could  be  done,  to  continue 
to  stand,  were  traits  which  made  him  the  foremost  captain  of  his 
age.  The  rugged  primitiveness  of  his  demeanor,  and  his  sin- 
gular humility  and  approachableness,  were  not  always  indicative 
of  the  majestic  will  concealed  beneath  them.  The  mire  and  ma- 
lignancy he  encountered  could  not  detain  him;  he  forged  steadily 
ahead  toward  a  goal  to  which  he  had  been  appointed,  clearing 
the  path  for  others  who  had  less  prescience.  Nor  was  this  hardi- 
hood stimulated  by  an  optimistic  outlook.  Few  were  optimists 
in  the  dark  years  from  1850  to  1865.  He  knew  that  the  political 
gospel  of  Webster,  Clay,  Calhoun  and  Douglas  was  exhausted, 
that  the  Nation  chafed  beneath  its  artificial  boundaries.     Yet 


ADDRESS  OF  REV.  S.  PARKES  CADMAN,  D.D.  231 

the  deep  dejection  that  weighed  upon  him  clarified  his  vision. 
For  faith  is  born  in  such  extremities,  and  because  he  trusted  God 
and  trusted  the  people,  he  was  delivered  from  that  fear  which 
has  a  thousand  eyes  to  plague  its  beating  heart.  His  choices 
were  upheld  by  the  course  of  events;  his  prediction  that  after 
the  night  of  tempest,  when  brother  slew  brother,  not  knowing 
whom  he  slew,  the  sun  would  rise  on  erstwhile  bondsmen  who 
no  longer  went  forth  scourged  to  unrequited  toil,  was  splendidly 
fulfilled. 

The  beginning  remains  the  supreme  moment.  The  coarseness 
of  Lincoln's  early  life  has  always  attracted  us.  Roses  blooming 
on  an  icy  waste  are  scarcely  less  phenomenal  than  to  find  our 
chieftain  in  the  woods  of  a  frontier  State.  That  his  conditions 
as  a  boy  and  a  man  have  been  exaggerated  is  beyond  doubt.  But 
when  soberly  considered  they  leave  ample  margin  for  wonder  and 
bewilderment.  The  best  explanation  of  his  emergence  lies  in  the 
intellectual  and  ethical  endowments  of  his  remoter  ancestry. 
Like  Washington  and  Franklin,  he  came  of  an  ancient  stock 
which  had  already  given  us  Alfred,  Cromwell,  Milton,  the  elder 
and  the  younger  Pitt,  and  the  Colonial  Masters.  Whatever  their 
tribe  has  done  or  undone,  it  has  produced  a  lineage  of  exalted 
spirits  who  held,  in  varying  degrees,  that  perfect  obedience  to  a 
perfect  law  makes  perfect  liberty.  That  they  did  not  achieve 
this,  is  nothing  against  them.  At  the  least,  they  approximated 
toward  it  as  their  polar  star,  distant  but  never  dim,  by  whose 
aid  they  navigated  the  stormiest  seas.  Their  vital  conception 
of  law  as  a  habit  of  the  mind  restrained  their  individualism; 
they  could  live  alone  and  also  in  ascertained  communism;  they 
could  think  for  themselves  and  also  in  unison.  It  was  granted 
to  Lincoln  that  he  should  express  his  gifts  in  correspondence  with 
the  popular  mind.    But  this  is  the  vocation  of  the  oracle  rather 


232  THE   REPUBLICAN   CLTJB 

than  of  the  gronndling.  And  those  who  imagine  that  he  always 
waited  for  counsel  from  an  agitated  commonwealth  have  only  to 
note  him  at  a  crisis  to  be  undeceived.  Horace  Greeley  would  tell 
a  different  story,  has  told  it.  His  debate  with  Douglas  is  the 
best  tribute  to  his  thoroughness  of  analysis,  comprehensive  sym- 
pathy, skilful  and  constructive  use  of  necessary  principles,  in 
the  era  prior  to  his  Presidency.  For  Douglas  was  a  true  patriot, 
a  doughty  antagonist,  and  when  unseduced  by  the  exigencies  of 
partisanship,  a  formidable  pleader.  But  Lincoln's  resources  of 
brain,  his  acute  perception  of  his  fellows,  and  his  relieving  be- 
nevolence, were  moralized  by  his  detestation  for  slavery.  What 
has  been  deemed  intuitional  rather  than  logical  in  his  argument, 
in  reality,  was  reasoning  carried  to  the  nth  power.  It  rested 
on  a  rational  basis  as  broad  and  as  firm  as  eternal  righteousness. 
Moreover,  his  batteries  were  masked.  Here  was  no  strut,  no 
pose,  no  undue  stiffness,  nor  purple  patch,  no  heart-foam,  of 
meaningless  rhetoric.  The  telling  phrase,  the  sure  word,  the 
luminous  metaphor,  were  at  his  call.  He  was  not  baffled  by  the 
excessive  gravity  of  Sumner,  nor  the  artificialism  of  Chase,  nor 
the  truculence  of  Stanton,  nor  the  meticulous  egotism  of  Mc- 
Clellan,  nor  the  occasional  ineptitude  of  Seward.  Those  who 
dwell  on  the  surface  have  found  it  difficult  to  detect  the  full 
resonance  and  completeness  of  Lincoln's  nature.  If  the  heart 
makes  the  theologian,  surely  it  has  something  to  do  for  the 
statesman.  Hence  what  he  pondered  and  said  was  so  subtly  in- 
terwoven, so  original  and  arresting,  yet  if  the  premises  we  cher- 
ish were  accepted,  so  plainly  true,  that  it  could  only  be  rejected 
by  denying  the  standard  doctrines  on  which  all  alike  professed 
to  rest  their  cause.  As  a  political  thinker,  it  is  vain  to  compare 
him  with  Burke.  But  he  never  suffered  his  talents  to  be  deflected, 
and  Burke  did.     As  a  lawyer,  he  had  no  legal  lore  comparable 


ADDRESS  OF  REV.   S.  PARKES  CADMAN,  D.D.  233 

with  that  of  Jessel,  or  Cairns,  or  Field.  But  he  interpenetrated 
what  law  he  knew  with  the  innate  justice  on  which  every  law 
depends  for  its  sway.  The  literature  and  learning  of  his  con- 
temporaries were  not  at  his  disposal.  He  made  no  reference  to 
the  poets  and  prose  authors  who  sang  and  wrote  in  his  behalf  in 
New  England.  What  originality  he  had  diverted  itself  with  spor- 
adic and  perishable  works  of  humor.     This  chosen  lyric — 

*'0h,  why  should  the  spirit  of  mortal  be  proud," 
indicated  his  lowliness  of  soul  rather  than  correct  taste.  But 
gain  was  in  the  loss;  he  knew  and  loved  the  Bible  and  Shake- 
speare. From  these  classics,  and  from  the  vast  and  hidden  prov- 
inces of  his  personality,  he  acquired  by  tenacious  effort,  a  vigor 
and  an  ease  of  style  which  the  pressure  of  his  service  enlisted 
and  brought  to  the  front.  I  have  studied  the  acumen  of  his 
closely  woven  argument,  alluring  to  the  most  fastidious  reader, 
each  part  related  to  every  other  part,  and  to  the  whole,  and 
mounting  to  its  conclusion  as  surely  as  the  eagle  soars  above  the 
plain,  until  I  knew  not  which  excelled,  the  matter  or  the  man- 
ner of  his  discourse.  Throughout  its  appeal  shone  that  gleam 
from  the  Uncreated  Radiance  which  redeems  and  glorifies  even 
commonplace  sentiment.  Without  a  suspicion  of  pharisaism,  or 
the  tendency  to  mere  platitude,  at  intervals  he  girded  himself  for 
the  fray,  and  became  the  prophet  of  the  nations,  the  superb  advo- 
cate of  verities  which  wake  to  perish  never.  The  Gettysburg 
Address  and  the  Second  Inaugural  suffice  as  fine  specimens  of  an 
inevitable  rectitude  which  captured  his  constituents  and  justified 
democracy.  Nor  did  he  spend  his  strength  on  petty  issues.  There 
were  adroit  dealings  in  his  handling  of  affairs  which  sustain  the 
charge  that  he  was  a  politician.  But  politicians  have  far  more 
regard  for  major  concerns  than  is  supposed  by  purists,  and  when 
Lincoln  came  to  the  gulf  between  right  and  wrong  he  was  a 


234  THE   EEPTJBLICAN   CLUB 

Rock,  a  Refuge,  a  House  of  Defense.  "May  I  be  damned  in  time 
and  eternity  if  I  ever  break  faith  with  friend  or  foe!"  he  cried, 
when  asked  to  repudiate  his  allegiance  to  his  convictions. 

No  land-locked  soul,  hemmed  in  and  stagnant,  but  a  living 
arm  of  the  Oceanic  Being  out  of  Whom  he  drew;  such  was  Abra- 
ham Lincoln.  He  shared  in  the  mystery  of  Godliness  as  well  as 
that  of  genius.  The  mingling  of  pathos  and  power,  of  tragedy 
and  triumph,  in  his  entire  fabric,  his  complexity  and  his  sim- 
plicity; the  balance  and  adjustment  of  his  varied  endowments; 
and  their  unreserved  consecration  to  the  grandest  interests,  have 
made  him  our  paragon.  Not  a  cold  and  monumental  saint,  but 
a  divine-human  creature,  toiling,  suffering,  enduring,  treading 
a  path  of  darkness  and  of  death,  submitted  to  the  cruel  caprices 
of  an  outrageous  fortune,  compelled  to  witness  the  slaughter  he 
abominated  in  behalf  of  a  Union  dearer  than  life  itself,  crowned 
with  a  belated  triumph  to  which  his  ending  gave  additional  and 
melancholy  splendor,  we  can  never  dismiss  him  from  recollection. 
His  shining  covers  every  quarter  of  the  firmament.  His  work 
abides.  He  becomes  more  necessary  to  us  and  to  the  anchorage 
of  those  to  whom  he  gave  everything  he  had  or  was,  while  the 
years  pass.  Others  fade  on  the  historic  canvas,  he  stands  out 
more  conspicuously,  even  the  minute  blurs  and  blots  heightening 
our  gratitude.  Democracy  is  never  so  hapless  as  when  leaderless, 
inchoate,  infirm  of  aim.  That  those  who  bear  his  political  name 
may  inherit  his  spirit  is  the  fervent  aspiration  of  our  citizenship. 
And  if,  in  this  babel  of  voices,  we  are  sometimes  puzzled,  and 
ask,  "What  is  this  Republic?  What  is  it  meant  to  be  and  to  do? 
Wherein  are  we  its  loyal  and  obedient  sons?"  there  can  be  no 
better  answer  than  the  life  and  teachings,  the  death  and  memory 
of  Abraham  Lincoln  afford  to  every  one  of  us.  We  know,  beyond 
a  peradventure,  the  sovereign  conceptions  of  God,  of  man,  of 


ADDRESS  OF  REV.  S.  PARKES  CADMAN,  D.D.  235 

society,  which  ordained  his  magnanimity,  his  tranquil  confidence, 
his  unselfish  and  exemplary  career.  Knowing  these,  happy  are 
we  if  we  actualize  them,  without  fear  or  favor,  strong  to  achieve 
in  that  faith  and  toil  which  gave  him  the  Amaranth. 


THE    THIRTY-FIRST 

ANNUAL   LINCOLN   DINNER 

of  the 

REPUBLICAN  CLUB 

of  the 

City  of  New  York 

At  the  Waldorf-Astoria 

FEBRUARY  12,  1917 


ADDRESS    OF 


HON.  WARREN  G.  HARDING 


WARREN  6.  HARDING 
Twenty-ninth  President  of  the  "United  States.  Na- 
tive of  Ohio.  Hember  of  the  Ohio  State  Senate,  and 
United  States  Senator  from  that  State  preceding  his 
election  as  President  of  the  Nation.  Publisher  of 
"The  Marion  Star."    Scholar  and  orator. 


[Note  by  Editors:  This  address  was  delivered  at 
the  dinner  of  the  Lincoln  Memorial  University  in 
Washington,  February  12,  1922.  The  theme  and  treat- 
ment was  the  same  as  at  the  Republican  Club  of  the 
City  of  New  York  in  1917.] 


Ox   . 


r 

1. 


ADDREI8    OF 

PRESIDENT  WARREN  G.  HARDlK^Li 


TO 


Mr.  Toastmaster  and  guests:  No  human  story  surpasses  the 
fascination  and  the  inspiration  of  that  of  Abraham  Lincoln.  The 
republic  pays  tribute  to-night,  and  most  of  the  world  is  doing 
him  reverence,  because  in  his  unshaken  faith  the  world  finds  its 
own  hopes  mightily  strengthened.  Our  words  are  all  feeble,  be- 
cause we  are  dealing  with  the  Master  Martyr,  the  supreme  leader 
in  a  national  crisis,  the  surpassing  believer  in  a  fulfilled  destiny, 
and  a  collossal  figure  among  the  hero-statesmen  of  all  the  ages. 

Turning  over,  in  the  last  few  days,  the  promise  I  had  made  to 
add  my  own  to  the  testimonies  that  here  are  to  be  spoken,  I  have 
been  impressively  reminded  of  the  greatly  revived  interest  in 
everything  concerning  Lincoln  which  has  marked  the  past  few 
years,  notably  the  last  two.  I  have  been  thinking  of  how  many 
times,  in  the  recent  years  of  the  world^s  trial  and  travail,  I  have 
received  books,  letters,  articles,  published  literally  all  over  the 
world,  about  Lincoln.  One  cannot  but  have  observed  how  greatly 
the  thoughts  of  people  have  turned  to  this  man  of  vision,  the 
great  emancipator,  who  spoke  with  the  voice  of  the  common  peo- 
ple for  truth  and  for  freedom.  One  cannot  have  failed  to  note 
that  as  the  fortunes  of  mankind  have  confronted  tribulation  and 
distress,  the  minds  of  men  have  turned  to  this  son  of  the  yearn- 
ing, eager,  earnest,  simple  people,  and  have  sought  in  the  story 


240  THE   REPUBLICAN   '^^^ 


of  his  life  for  guidance  in  th^  ^o^r  of  humanity's  trial.  To  me, 
this  has  been  a  portent  of  -^pe>  a  justification  of  faith,  a  reason 
for  confidence  that  me*  '^iU  ^^ot  only  guide  the  bark  of  civiliza- 
tion through  the  ycorms  which  beset  it,  but  will  at  last  bring  it 
into  the  port  o^  a  better  and  happier  day. 

It  does  aot  seem  hard  to  understand  why  in  times  like  these 
in  wiich  we  live  there  should  be  such  a  renascence  of  sentiment 
for  Lincoln,  of  renewed  interest  in  the  great  lessons  of  his  life. 
For  men  have  come  to  think  of  him  as  they  have  not  thought 
of  others  among  the  merely  human  characters  of  history.  Lin- 
coln has  appealed  to  them  as  one  who  manifestly  was  brought 
forth  with  the  destiny  or  consecrated  by  an  infinite  hand  to  ren- 
der a  particular  service,  to  save  a  nation,  to  emancipate  a  people, 
to  preserve  in  the  world  the  fruits  of  the  American  experiment 
in  and  for  democracy.  Surely  it  is  not  strange  that  the  eyes  and 
interest  of  a  world  should  turn  to  him  now,  when  all  mankind 
feels  the  need  for  such  leadership  and  service  and  direction  as  he 
gave.  A  world,  a  civilization,  an  epoch — all  these  are  facing  the 
bitter  need  for  the  moral  purpose,  the  noble  aspirations,  the  high 
courage,  that  he  interpreted  to  our  America  in  the  days  of  its 
crisis.  More,  humanity  itself  needs  to  drink  of  the  cup  of  un- 
failing confidence  which  enabled  him  to  stand  erect  and  un- 
shaken amid  discouragements  and  criticism  which  would  have 
crushed  any  less  than  a  master  heart  and  soul. 

The  world  to-day  sees  civilization  brought  to  its  supreme  test. 
Its  trial  came  when  it  might  least  have  been  expected.  At  the 
very  apex  of  material  advances,  when  science  and  industry  and 
invention  and  culture  seemed  to  have  united  in  justifying  man's 
proudest  estimate  of  his  destiny,  there  came  among  the  nations 
such  a  clash  of  ambitions,  such  a  confusion  of  ideals,  such  a 
crash  of  conflicting  aims  and  aspirations,  as  it  had  never  known 


ADDRESS  OF  PRESIDENT  HARDING  241 

before.  It  brought  bewildering  confusion,  and  overwhelming 
amazement  to  those  who  had  been  esteemed  the  wisest  among 
their  kind,  and  who  in  the  folly  of  their  wisdom  had  been  most 
certain  that  such  a  thing  could  never  happen.  And  in  the  very 
face  of  havoc  wrought,  of  the  utter  futility  of  it  all,  we  still 
wonder  that  it  could  have  been. 

But  the  sobering  and  destroying  realization  has  come  at  last, 
that  in  its  eagerness  to  harness  and  dominate  the  material  forces 
of  the  world,  humanity  had  lost  its  anchorage  to  the  ultimate 
things  of  the  higher,  the  nobler,  the  spiritual  universe.  Turning 
now,  in  the  midst  of  the  wreckage,  to  seek  for  whatever  can  be 
trusted  as  safe  and  strong  and  lasting,  it  is  not  to  be  wondered 
that  people  turn  anew  the  pages  of  Lincoln's  story.  In  very 
truth,  his  soul  is  marching  on.  To  him  it  has  been  given  to  leave 
a  living  heritage  of  vital  power  and  supreme  inspiracion  to  the 
race.  Out  of  Lincoln  came  the  proof  that  lofty  achievement  is 
not  in  ideals  alone,  but  in  that  spiritual  and  material  justice 
which  is  the  wholesome  blending  of  infinite  purpose  and  man's 
capacity  for  fulfillment. 

I  spoke  a  moment  ago  of  the  multiplicity  of  present  day  writ- 
ings about  Lincoln.  They  embrace  everything  from  the  geneal- 
ogist's delvings  into  his  ancestry,  to  the  psychologist's  and  the 
moralist's  searchings  into  his  innermost  motives  and  objectives. 
Nothing  that  might  possibly  reveal  any  phase  of  his  life  and  work 
has  been  accounted  trivial.  We  are  coming  year  by  year  to  a 
more  truthful  and  understanding  appraisal  of  him.  But  all  the 
researches  of  scholars  and  efforts  of  students  have  brought  us 
little  store  of  real  understanding,  have  taught  us  well  nigh  noth- 
ing concerning  the  supreme  providential  purpose  which  permits 
such  a  light  to  shine  now  and  then  upon  a  generation  of  men. 


242  THE  EEPUBLICAN   CLUB 

We  know  not  whence  come  such  great  souls,  such  simple  wisdom, 
such  capacity  for  sacrifice  and  service.  But  we  do  know  that  as 
men  contemplate  this  strange  career  and  study  its  wonders  and 
its  lessons,  they  are  at  least  planting  in  their  minds  and  hearts 
a  certain  vague  realization  of  what  Lincoln  was  and  meant;  a 
consciousness  of  his  personal  significance  to  them;  and  with  all 
this,  a  keen  aspiration  for  some  little  participation  in  such  a 
bestowal  of  selfiessness,  sacrifice  and  service  as  was  the  life  of 
Lincoln.  That  aspiration,  I  firmly  believe,  is  fixed  in  a  greater 
number  of  human  hearts  to-day  than  it  ever  was  before.  It 
may  be  somewhat  vague  and  unformed,  yet  we  readily  recognize 
that  it  represents  something  like  the  aspirations  of  a  race  for  a 
new  incarnation  of  the  spirit  and  the  leadership  of  Lincoln. 

Doubtless  it  is  vain  to  hope  that  another  such  as  he  will  be 
given  to  us  ^nd  to  our  time.  But  to  the  extent  that  we  shall 
prove  ourselves  worthy  of  such  a  leader,  to  that  extent  we  shall 
be  the  better  able  to  save  ourselves  without  him.  The  task  which 
men  face  throughout  the  world  now  is  one  with  which  they  must 
cope  as  God  intended.  Their  hope,  their  salvation,  their  destiny, 
must  at  last  be  in  their  own  hands.  They  will  save  themselves 
if  they  will  forget  themselves.  Probably  the  task  would  be  less 
difficult  if  humanity  would  get  a  little  nearer  to  God.  In  times 
like  these,  the  fullest,  truest  service  that  any  nation  or  any  so- 
ciety can  render  to  itself,  will  be  the  service  which  is  conceived 
in  unselfishness  and  rendered  without  thought  of  immediate  gain, 
or  even  of  ultimate  personal  advantage. 

We  drink  from  memory,  we  find  inspiration  in  example,  we  are 
exalted  by  the  eternal  truths  which  Lincoln  saw  and  proclaimed, 
but  the  highest  usefulness  in  these  things  is  their  practical  pre- 
servation, so  as  to  reveal  to  all  the  people  a  true  understanding 


ADDRESS  OF  PRESIDENT  HARDING  243 

of  Lincoln's  transcending  eminence.  His  snpreme  gift  was  not 
in  construction,  his  was  the  mastery  of  preservation.  And  the  call 
of  the  world  to-day  is  for  preservation,  for  the  preserved  civiliza- 
tion which  is  the  best  judgment  of  human  intelligence  since  the 
world  began. 


THE    THIRTY-SECOND 

ANNUAL  LINCOLN   DINNER 

of  the 

REPUBLICAN   CLUB 

of  the 

City  of  New  York 

FEBRUARY  12,  1918 


ADDRESS    OF 
HON.  ROBERT  W.   BONYNGE 


ROBERT  W.  BONYNGE 

President  of  the  National  Republican  Clnb  dnring 
the  World  War.  Member  of  Congress  from  Colorado. 
Appointed  by  President  Harding  a  member  of  the 
Mixed  Claims  Commission,  "United  States  and  Germany. 
Authority  on  finance.    Born  in  New  York,  1863. 


ADDRESS   OF 


ROBERT  W.  BONYNGE 

President  of  the  Club 


Guests  and  fellow  members  of  the  Club:  On  behalf  of  the  Ee- 
publican  Club  of  the  City  of  New  York,  I  bid  you,  one  and  all, 
a  cordial  welcome  to  our  thirty-second  consecutive  celebration  of 
the  anniversary  of  the  birth  of  the  immortal  Abraham  Lincoln. 

As  we  meet  here  to-night  to  pay  homage  and  tribute  to  the 
name  and  fame  and  the  life  and  character  of  that  greatest  of  all 
expounders  and  advocates  of  popular  government  among  men,  the 
cause  for  which  he  lived  and  died  is  engaged  on  the  other  side 
of  the  globe  in  a  titanic  struggle  for  existence  with  all  the  forces 
of  tyranny  and  autocracy.  Amid  the  clashing  of  arms,  the  roar- 
ing of  cannon,  the  bursting  of  shell  and  with  all  the  instruments 
of  death  and  destruction  which  human  ingenuity  could  devise, 
this  transcendently  important  issue  to  civilization  and  human 
progress  is  now  being  settled,  for  all  time  to  come,  on  many  a 
battlefield  in  Europe. 

Somewhere  over  there,  in  that  awful  conflict  with  its  fright- 
ful carnage  and  slaughter,  our  boys,  our  sons  and  relatives,  drawn 
from  every  section  of  the  country  and  from  all  ranks  of  society 
— American  citizens  all — are  bravely  and  gallantly  doing  their 
part  to  safeguard  for  mankind  the  liberty  and  freedom  preserved 
for  us  by  him  in  honor  of  whose  birth,  in  a  humble  log  cabin  in 
Kentucky  109  years  ago  to-day,  this  meeting  is  being  held. 


248  THE   REPUBLICAN   CLUB 

Mindful  of  these  facts  and  remembering  the  suffering  and  sac- 
rifices of  our  allies ;  of  stricken  but  indomitable  Belgium,  of  brave 
and  gallant  France,  of  fighting  and  heroic  Italy,  of  resolute  and 
unconquerable  Great  Britain  and  her  colonies,  as  well  as  the  sac- 
rifices made  and  to  be  made  by  our  own  people,  your  Executive 
Committee  decided  to  forego  this  year  the  usual  public  Lincoln 
banquet  given  by  this  Club  for  thrity-one  years  on  this  sacred 
day  in  our  political  calendar.  We  believed  it  would  be  more  in 
keeping  with  the  spirit  of  the  times  and  with  your  wishes  and 
desires  to  assemble  on  this  occasion  and  under  these  circumstances 
in  this  Temple  of  Republicanism,  here  to  commemorate  fittingly 
and  patriotically  the  memory  of  Abraham  Lincoln  and  endeavor 
to  draw  from  his  teachings  inspiration  for  the  discharge  of  our 
duties  of  the  present  and  the  determination  and  the  courage,  at 
whatever  cost,  to  transmit  to  our  posterity  in  all  its  integrity 
the  priceless  inheritance  he  bequeathed  to  us. 

It  is  not  as  partisans  we  meet  here  to-night.  Immediately 
upon  the  declaration  of  war,  the  Republican  Club  of  the  City  of 
New  York,  true  to  the  teachings  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  willingly 
and  cheerfully  sacrificed  its  partisanship  upon  the  altar  of  patri- 
otism. From  that  day  to  this  no  partisan  note  on  the  war  or  its 
issues  has  been  sounded  within  the  walls  of  this  Club  House.  We 
have  not  known  and  will  not  know  in  this  crisis  any  distinction 
between  patriotic  American  citizens  striving  to  uphold  our  coun- 
try's cause.  The  administration  at  Washington  is  our  admin- 
istration. It  matters  not  to  us  by  what  political  party  it  was 
elected  to  power.  It  has  had  and  will  continue  to  have  our 
enthusiastic  and  united  support  in  the  prosecution  of  the  war. 

We  will  continue  as  free  American  citizens  but  not  as  partisans 
to  consider,  discuss  and  determine  in  the  good  old  American  fash- 
ion what  measures  we  believe  necessary  for  the  successful  prose- 


ADDEESS  OF  HON.  ROBERT  W.  BONYNGE         249 

cntion  of  the  war,  and  that  whatever  the  decision  of  the  ma- 
jority may  be,  we  will  give  our  whole-hearted  support  to  the 
measures  adopted. 

Neither  is  the  memory  of  Abraham  Lincoln  the  sole  property 
of  the  Republican  Party.  We  take  a  pardonable  pride  in  the 
fact  that  we  gave  him  to  the  Nation.  The  Nation  has  in  turn 
given  him  to  the  world.  His  memory  is  now  not  only  the  prop- 
erty of  all  American  citizens,  but  of  all  the  free  peoples  of  the 
earth.  His  spirit  is  to-day  animating  the  allied  forces  of  democ- 
racy of  the  world  in  the  life  and  death  struggle  with  the  com- 
bined forces  of  autocracy.  His  work  is  not  finished.  It  will 
not  be  finished  until  his  conception  of  popular  government  and 
the  rights  of  the  people  shall  be  accepted  by  all  the  civilized 
nations  of  the  world. 

The  story  of  his  life  and  his  deeds  are  known  to  us  all.  His 
writings,  his  sayings,  his  political  principles  have  furnished  the 
theme  for  countless  speeches  and  the  text  for  innumerable  vol- 
umes.   We  are  familiar  with  them. 

We  love  to  hear  the  old  stories  repeated,  but  our  supreme  duty 
to-day,  as  I  see  it,  is  to  subject  ourselves  to  a  rigid  and  search- 
ing self-examination  to  determine  whether  we  are  living  true  to 
his  teachings,  keeping  his  faith  pure  and  undefiled  and  doing 
in  this  great  crisis  what  he  would  have  us  do  if  here  to  lead  and 
direct  us. 

We  can  only  judge  what  he  would  have  us  do  by  considering 
what  he  did  in  his  day  of  trial. 

We  know  that  in  the  darkest  day  of  our  history,  when  the 
life  of  the  Nation  was  literally  hanging  in  the  balance  and  all 
around  him  were  gloom  and  despair,  his  brave  soul  never  fal- 
tered or  wavered. 

We  know  he  was  subjected  to  abuse  and  vilification,  his  per- 


250  THE   REPUBLICAN   CLUB 

sonal  appearance  and  characteristics  brutally  caricatured,  his 
views  and  opinions  scoffed  at  by  members  of  his  own  Cabinet; 
but  through  it  all  he  maintained  a  patience  and  self-composure 
that  seemed  more  than  human  and  kept  his  mental  vision  cen- 
tered only  on  the  main  objective  for  which  he  summoned  the 
forces  of  the  Nation — ^the  salvation  of  the  Union  and  the  pre- 
servation of  popular  government. 

We  know  he  had  a  marvelous  faculty  for  understanding  men 
and  of  utilizing  in  the  country's  service  the  ability  and  talents 
of  others.  He  knew  neither  friendship,  religion  nor  politics  in 
the  selection  of  his  advisers.  In  his  first  Cabinet  he  had  four 
Democrats  and  his  personal  rival  in  his  own  party  for  the  Presi- 
dential nomination.  There  sat  the  courtly  Seward,  who  had  so 
little  regard  for  the  ability  of  Lincoln  that  he  obligingly  offered 
to  relieve  him  of  the  responsibility  of  his  office. 

We  know  he  did  not  hesistate  to  change  advisers  when  the 
country's  interest  demanded  the  change.  He  displaced  Simon 
Cameron,  the  political  leader  of  Pennsylvania,  as  Secretary  of 
War  as  soon  as  his  unfitness  for  the  post  became  apparent.  In 
his  place  he  named  the  best  qualified  man  in  the  nation  for  the 
office,  but  a  man  who  had  been  his  most  bitter  critic  and  who 
called  him  "the  original  guerilla" — ^the  great  Secretary  of  War, 
Edward  M,  Stanton. 

We  know  he  had  absolute  faith  in  the  people.  He  said,  "I 
have  faith  in  the  people.  Let  them  know  the  truth  and  the 
country  is  safe." 

We  know  he  welcomed  constructive  criticism  and  advice.  He 
was  the  most,  and  sometimes  the  worst,  advised  man  of  his 
generation. 

We  know  he  never  permitted  himself  or  any  one  around  him 
to  suggest  defeat  or  compromise.    With  him  our  cause  was  just 


ADDRESS  OF  HON.  ROBERT  W.  BONYNGE  251 

and  therefore  could  not  fail.  With  him  justice  and  righteous- 
ness were  not  matters  open  to  negotiation  or  subject  to  compro- 
mise. And  so  this  lonely  man,  this  majestic  man,  with  abiding 
faith  in  the  justice  of  his  cause  and  its  ultimate  triumph,  un- 
moved by  passion  and  undisturbed  by  criticism,  pursued  uner- 
ringly his  course,  which,  to  use  his  own  language,  was  "as  plain 
as  a  turnpike  road,"  until  victory  was  won  and  this  government 
"of  the  people,  by  the  people  and  for  the  people"  was  preserved 
not  alone  for  us,  but  for  all  the  liberty  loving  people  of  the 
earth.  May  we  not  from  our  knowledge  of  what  Abraham  Lin- 
coln did  in  his  day  of  great  trial,  understand  what  Lincolnism, 
if  I  may  use  the  term,  means  to-day. 

Plainly,  it  means  that  we  must  not  permit  ourselves,  because  of 
mistakes  made  or  temporary  defeats  or  set-backs  suffered,  for  one 
moment  to  lose  our  faith  in  the  ultimate  triumph  of  our  cause. 

It  means  sacrifice,  devotion  and  loyalty  on  the  part  of  all  our 
people. 

It  means  the  mobilization  and  utilization  of  all  our  national 
resources  for  the  accomplishment  of  the  great  purpose  for  which 
we  have  taken  up  arms. 

It  means  that  the  united  and  patriotic  support  by  all  our  peo- 
ple to  those  charged  with  the  management  of  the  war. 

It  means  calling  to  the  Nation^s  service  the  best  trained,  the 
best  equipped  and  the  most  competent  men  to  serve  their  conn- 
try,  regardless  of  political  considerations. 

It  means  stamping  out  inefficiency  wherever  found  in  the  pub- 
lic service. 

It  means  that  having  taken  up  arms  in  defense  of  our  liberty 
there  can  be  no  compromise  of  the  issue  until  we  shall  have  made 
secure  for  all  time  the  right  of  free  governments  to  exist  with- 


252  THE   REPUBLICAN   CLUB 

out  the  constant  dread  and  menace  of  attack  from  any  military 
power,  however  invincible  it  may  believe  itself  to  be. 

We  have  indeed  received  a  sacred  trust.  May  we  prove  worthy 
of  it!  May  we  here  to-night  catch  something  of  the  spirit  of 
Lincoln  and  Lincolnism.  Let  ns  here  to-night  in  this  home  of 
Kepublicanism,  individually  and  as  an  organization,  once  more 
renew  our  allegiance  to  the  principles  and  tenets  of  Abraham 
Lincoln,  our  faith  in  the  people  whom  he  loved,  our  trust  in 
popular  governments  and  with  clasped  hands  and  hearts  beating 
in  unison  offer  up  ourselves  and  all  we  hold  dear  to  th3  cause  for 
which  he  so  nobly  lived  and  heroically  died;  for  then  and  then 
only  shall  we  be  entitled  to  call  ourselves  worthy  disciples  of 
Abraham  Lincoln. 


THE    THIRTT-THIRD 

ANNUAL   LINCOLN   DINNER 

of  the 

REPUBLICAN   CLUB 

of  the 

City  of  New  York 

At  the  Waldorf-Astoria 

FEBRUARY  12,  1919 


Addresses  of 

HON.  CHARLES  D.  HIILES 

REV.  J.  PERCrVAL  HUGET,  D.D. 


ADDBESS    OF 

HON.  CHARLES  D.  HILLES 

President  of  the  Club 


The  Lincoln  Dinner  of  the  Eepublican  Club  is  a  fixed  feast 
which  has  been  celebrated  annually,  without  intermission,  since 
1890.  As  a  club  we  have  attained  our  fortieth  birthday.  Since 
the  last  occasion  on  which  we  commemorated  the  birth  of  the 
great  Emancipator,  the  Club  has  recruited  into  its  membership 
five  hundred  and  five  men,  and  to-night  its  register  stands  at 
1900  strong,  embracing  representatives  of  the  party  from  forty- 
four  of  the  forty-eight  States,  and  from  all  of  the  territorial 
possessions. 

The  Club  advocates,  promotes  and  maintains  principles  of  Ee- 
publicanism.  It  associates  itself  with  the  living  movements  of 
the  hour.  No  civic  obligation  is  more  important  than  that  of 
stamping  out  the  evil  of  indifference  to  political  duties.  Through 
political  organizations  and  clubs,  and  through  these  alone,  shall 
we  solve  the  problems  of  consummate  interest  that  have  direct 
contact  with  the  life  and  property  and  happiness  of  every 
citizen. 

The  founders  of  the  Club  raised  no  great  barriers  to  member- 
ship. The  controlling  conditions  are  good  citizenship,  ardent  and 
patriotic  Americanism,  and  loyal  and  stalwart  Republicanism. 
The  Club  is  exclusive  and  provincial  only  in  these  respects,  and 


256  THE   REPUBLICAN  CLTTB 


it  welcomes  to  membership  the  men  of  our  political  belief  who 
possess  these  essential  qualifications.  We  make  no  fetish  of  a  long 
waiting  list.  I  know  and  greatly  admire  the  headmaster  of  a 
thorough  New  England  preparatory  school  who  admits  that  there 
is  an  unwarranted  degree  of  false  pride  in  the  more  or  less  impress- 
ive— and,  at  times,  inflated — boast  of  long  waiting  lists  at  such 
schools,  and  who  says  that  at  the  school  over  which  he  presides 
there  is  a  waiting  list  of  one;  that  *'he"  is  the  one;  and  that 
he  is  waiting  at  the  front  door,  with  arms  extended,  for  all 
bright,  ambitious,  promising  boys. 

I  think  it  will  not  be  considered  an  indecorum,  or  a  species  of 
indirect  publicity,  to  say  at  this  time  that  our  Club  is  hospitable 
to  men  of  character  who  are  bent  upon  promoting  the  cause  of 
good  government  in  city,  State  and  Nation.  The  movement  to 
expand  the  membership  and  to  extend  the  useful  activities  of  the 
Club  is  gathering  momentum.  In  a  presidential  year  every  Re- 
publican Club  worthy  the  name  must  be  revitalized,  and  we  in- 
vite to  fellowship  with  us,  all  who  subscribe  to  the  tenets  of  our 
political  faith,  and  are  otherwise  eligible,  particularly  those  who 
believe,  as  we  do,  that  in  this  fateful  year  of  1920  there  rests 
upon  every  true  lover  of  this  country  a  solemn  obligation  to 
dedicate  to  public  affairs  such  portion  of  his  time,  his  talents 
and  his  energy  as  may  be  required  to  wrest  all  branches  of  our 
national  government  from  the  withering  grasp  of  a  greedy, 
blundering  and  incurably  incompetent  horde  of  "deserving 
Democrats." 

The  Republican  Party  was  brought  into  being  in  order  that 
the  "Union"  might  be  saved.  It  must  be  reinstated  in  order  that 
the  Republic  may  survive,  and  it  must  begin  the  renaissance  of 
the  Nation  by  driving  the  party  of  sectionalism  and  socialism 
from  the  citadel  of  power  to  the  end  that  order  be  brought  out 


ADDRESS  OF  HON.  CHARLES  D.  HILLES  257 

of  chaos,  confiscatory  laws  be  repealed,  private  property  seized 
for  the  ends  of  the  war  be  restored  to  its  rightful  owners,  con- 
structive legislation  be  enacted,  and  the  exact  nature  and  degree 
of  the  just  obligations  we  owe  as  an  important  and  potential  mem- 
ber in  the  family  of  nations,  and  such  as  are  owing  to  us,  be 
ascertained  and  fulfilled.  This  is  a  task  of  greater  magnitude 
than  any  which  the  nation  has  been  called  upon  to  perform  since 
the  Civil  War. 

We  have  met  to-night  to  commemorate  not  alone  the  birthday 
of  a  man  than  whom  there  never  was  a  gpreater,  but  also  an 
epoch  in  American  history  which  was  so  closely  intertwined 
with  that  man's  life  that  the  man  himself  and  the  great  events 
of  which  he  was  the  leading  figure  will  never  be  dissociated. 
It  has  been  most  truly  said  that  every  great  period  of  history 
has  turned  on  the  soul  of  a  single  man.  In  every  great  cause, 
the  question  and  the  man  melt;  but  the  man  is  much  the  larger 
term  in  the  equation.  Never  short  of  Divinity  itself  has  that 
fact  been  more  fully  developed  than  in  that  period  when  this 
country  emerged  from  the  darkness  of  a  lower  civilization  and 
planted  its  feet  firmly  on  the  rock  of  eternal  justice  and  assured 
freedom  to  all  men,  of  whatever  color  or  whatever  race. 

In  that  period  Abraham  Lincoln  came  to  the  fullness  of  his 
mental  and  spiritual  powers,  and  in  that  period  the  Republican 
party  was  born.  Lincoln  did  not  create  the  Republican  party; 
nor  did  the  Republican  party  make  Lincoln.  Each  was  the  prod- 
uct of  the  mighty  forces  of  the  time.  Each  was  the  result  of  the 
bursting  of  very  degrading  bonds.  At  the  end  of  sixty  years 
and  each  succeeding  year  it  became  clearer  and  clearer  that  it  was 
the  voice  and  the  soul  of  Lincoln  that  led  strong  men  throughout 
the  land  to  those  higher  levels  of  national  and  political  life  and 
morality  which  forever  silenced  those  who  fostered  a  part  of  the 


258  THE  EEPUBLICAN  CLUB 

population  towards  and  protected  slavery,  engendered  sectional- 
ism, and  produced  a  most  pernicious  form  of  aristocracy.  It  was 
inevitable  that  American  manhood  would  revolt,  that  the  ideal- 
ism which  is  the  heritage  of  all  Americans  would  assert  itself, 
but  something  more  was  needed  than  a  mere  rebellion  against 
an  intolerable  condition.  A  prophet,  a  leader,  an  inspirer  was 
necessary  to  call  those  great  moral  forces  of  the  nation  into  full 
play,  to  make  them  cohesive  and  to  guide  them  in  the  paths  of 
justice  and  of  righteousness.  Every  great  emergency  begets  the 
man,  and  so  at  the  moment  the  need  was  the  greatest  the  leader 
appeared. 

We  who  are  the  sons  of  the  founders  of  that  political  party 
which,  as  a  whole,  has  had  a  greater  influence  upon  the  affairs 
not  only  of  our  own  country,  but  upon  those  of  the  world,  than 
any  political  party  that  ever  existed — we  who  have  inherited 
traditions  that  belong  to  the  Eepublican  Party  and  to  it  alone, 
do  well  to  memorialize  and  to  celebrate  on  each  successive  anni- 
versary of  Lincoln's  birth  the  greatness  of  his  life  and  of  his 
utterance  of  those  doctrines  and  those  eternal  principles  upon 
which  our  party  was  founded  and  which  have  been  the  most 
potent  influence  in  the  development  and  upholding  of  this  great 
nation. 

Which  is  the  most  important  event  to  remember  on  this  anni- 
versary night?  The  birth  of  Lincoln  in  1809,  or  the  birth  of  the 
Republican  Party  in  1854,  and  its  coming  into  the  full  flower  of 
strength  and  national  character  under  the  leadership  of  Lincoln 
six  years  later? 

Republican  principles  and  Lincoln's  ideals  and  leadership  were 
so  much  a  part  of  each  other  that  we  could  not  observe  the  one 
event  without  in  fact  commemorating  the  other.  And  this  Re- 
public may  forever  rejoice  that  with  the  occasion  there  arose  the 


ADDRESS  OF  HON.  CHARLES  D.  HILLES  259 

man.  He  had  been  unconsciously  preparing  for  it  for  half  a 
century.  *'His  intellect  seemed  daily  to  expand  and  to  become 
more  and  more  robust  as  the  load  upon  it  in  such  an  unparalleled 
epoch  became  ever  more  severe." 

As  we  look  back  after  this  lapse  of  nearly  sixty  years  we  find 
him  more  and  more  standing  in  the  forefront  amongst  all  but  a 
very  few  of  the  great  leaders  chosen  to  guide  the  Nation  through 
the  stress  and  storm  of  its  national  life,  in  the  genuineness  and 
vision  of  his  leadership.  Notwithstanding  he  felt  malice  toward 
none,  he  was  not  **too  proud  to  fight,"  and  he  didn't  win  re- 
election by  the  boast  that  he  had  kept  us  out  of  war.  He  was 
no  timorous  guide;  he  was  no  false  prophet.  In  the  highest  pos- 
sible degree  he  was  the  Chief  Magistrate  of  all  the  people,  even 
of  those  whom  it  was  necessary  to  chasten.  In  the  noblest  sense 
he  reflected  public  opinion,  born  of  conviction,  never  because  it 
was  popular  only.  Always  he  led.  The  inspiration  of  his  lofty 
ideals  and  his  high  integrity  won  him  the  love  of  his  country- 
men and  made  him  their  spiritual  and  true  leader. 

And  for  this  quality  of  genuine  leadership,  of  sane  leadership, 
of  disinterested  leadership,  of  humility  in  his  hours  of  triumph, 
and  of  willingness  to  take  counsel  in  his  hours  of  doubt,  this 
country  has  given  thanks  for  more  than  half  a  century. 

The  crying  need  of  the  age  is  leadership,  leadership  of  the 
type  and  character  of  Lincoln;  leadership  possessed  of  vision  in 
keeping  with  the  demands  of  the  hour  and  the  portend  of  the 
future;  leadership  founded  in  nobility,  humility  and  dignity, 
symbolizing  the  strength  and  spirit  of  American  citizenship,  the 
greatness  of  the  obligation  as  well  as  the  opportunity  of  this  Re- 
public; a  leadership  akin  to  such  as  Lincoln's.  Such  a  leadership 
found  its  expression  in  Lincoln  who  faced  every  reverse  with 
serenity,  adversity  with  hope,  and  met  recreancy  with  charity. 


260  THE  REPUBLICAN  CLUB 

In  the  course  of  his  struggles  frequently  starvation  stared  him 
in  the  face,  yet  there  was  never  bitterness  in  his  soul  nor  rancor 
in  his  heart.  He  met  every  issue  squarely  and  never  evaded  it. 
He  was  born  among  the  trees;  was  reared  in  the  timber;  he  tra- 
versed the  wide  and  open  prairie;  he  sailed  the  streams  and 
breathed  the  air  of  freedom;  he  communed  with  the  stars  and 
the  heaven  above.  He  was  tall  and  upstanding,  erect  in  figure 
as  in  character.  He  brought  to  manhood  a  ripe  experience,  a 
confidence  born  of  successful  struggle,  a  patience  born  of  adver- 
sity, a  sympathy  born  of  denial,  a  charity  born  of  suffering,  a 
soulfulness  born  of  humility,  and  a  Godliness  born  of  faith  and 
Divine  understanding.  Possessing  these  attributes  he  came  to 
ihe  fullness  of  his  power  for  service  to  his  people,  to  his  country 
and  to  all  mankind.  The  influence  of  his  spirit  has  grown  and 
lived  until  to-day  it  is  embraced  and  invoked  not  only  in  this 
Republic,  but  in  all  the  four  corners  of  the  globe.  One  of 
our  American  poets  has  appropriately,  beautifully  and  truly  por- 
trayed Lincoln  thus: 

"A  blend  of  mirth  and  sadness,  smiles  and  tears; 

A  quaint  "knight  errant"  of  the  Pioneers; 

A  homely  hero  born  of  star  and  sod; 

A  peasant  prince;  a  masterpiece  of  God." 

These  recurring  birthdays  of  our  noble  national  characters 
come  to  us  much  as  the  other  days  of  the  year.  It  is  for  us  to 
make  them  memorable,  to  dignify  them,  to  turn  them  to  patriotic 
and  constructive  purposes.  The  days  come  to  us  as  blocks  from 
the  quarry,  one  very  like  another,  and,  if  we  are  wise,  we  secure 
for  the  task  of  shaping  them,  of  ornamenting  them,  of  turning 
them  to  useful  account,  workmen  of  the  first  order,  workmen  of 
vision,  of  skill  and  of  achievement. 

One  of  these  skilled  workmen  is  the  senior  Senator  from  New 


ADDRESS  OF  HON.  CHARLES  D.  HILLES  261 

York,  Senator  Wadsworth.  He  is  one  of  the  relatively  few  young 
men  in  American  public  life  who,  at  an  early  age,  dedicated  him- 
self to  the  public  service  and  made  painstaking  and  adequate 
preparation  for  his  career;  who  has  the  advantage  of  the  back- 
ground of  several  years  of  careful  training  and  useful  service  in 
the  legislative  halls  of  our  own  State;  and  who  rendered  a  serv- 
ice during  the  great  war  as  a  member  of  the  important  commit- 
tee on  Military  Affairs  of  the  United  States  Senate  (of  which 
committee  he  is  now  the  capable  chairman),  which  service  was 
not  surpassed  in  importance  by  that  rendered  by  any  of  his  col- 
leagues. The  Senate  is  now  called  upon  to  solve  problems  which 
are  even  more  formidable  than  they  are  numerous.  The  reac- 
tion which  always  follows  a  great  war  has  set  in.  We  have  had 
some  severe  ordeals,  but  it  is  clear  that  we  must  expect  that  the 
coming  ordeals  will  be  severer  still.  There  has  been,  and  there 
will  be,  submitted  to  the  Congress  a  group  of  questions,  as  a  part 
of  the  program  of  reconstruction,  which,  taken  together,  will 
determine  whether  we  are  to  have  our  larger  liberties  restored 
and  are,  or  are  not,  to  be  a  self-governing  people. 

Senator  Wadsworth's  courage,  fidelity  to  duty,  consistent 
course  of  action,  mental  equipment,  vision,  virility  and  demon- 
strated leadership  of  men  combined  to  advance  him  to  the  front 
rank  in  the  counsels  of  the  Senate,  of  the  party,  and  of  the  Na- 
tion, and  have  made  his  public  services  well-nigh  indispensable. 
He  took  the  seat  made  vacant  by  the  voluntary  retirement  of 
Elihu  Root,  and  he  is  a  promising,  worthy  and  fit  successor  to 
that  New  Yorker  who  filled  a  place  of  shining  fame  in  the  eye 
of  the  world. 


REV.  JAMES  PERCIVAL  HUGET,  D.D. 

Clergyman,  Brooklyn;  Lecturer;  Author  of  "What 
Would  Lincoln  Say  to  This  Generation?"  and  other 
pamphlets. 


ADDEESS   OF 

REV.  J.  PERCIVAL  HUGET,  D.  D. 


In  the  year  1809  there  entered  the  life  of  this  world  a  group 
of  men  who  were  destined  to  write  their  names  in  fadeless  letters 
upon  the  pages  of  the  history  of  humanity.  In  1845  one  of  them, 
Alfred  Tennyson,  published  his  "In  Memoriam.''  Although  Ten- 
nyson in  all  probability  had  not  at  this  time  even  heard  the  name 
of  the  yet  unknown  Springfield  lawyer,  there  are  lines  in  the 
poem  which  J.  A.  MacDonald,  of  the  Toronto  Globe,  applies  to 
Lincoln,  saying,  "his  name  alone  seems  to  answer  as  the  great 
original."  I  have  also  been  told  that  James  A.  Garfield  made 
the  same  application  in  his  memorial  address  in  Congpress. 

"Dost  thou  look  back  on  what  has  been, 
On  some  divinely  gifted  man 
Whose  life  on  low  estate  began, 
And  on  a  simple  village  green. 

Who  bursts  his  birth's  invidious  bar. 
And  grasps  the  skirts  of  happy  chance; 
And  breasts  the  blows  of  circumstance, 
And  grapples  with  his  evil  star. 

Who  makes  by  force  his  merit  known. 
And  lives  to  clutch  the  golden  keys; 
And  moulds  a  mighty  state's  decrees, 
And  shapes  the  whisper  of  the  throne. 


264  THE   REPUBLICAN   CLUB 

And  mounting  on  from  high  to  higher, 
Becomes  on  fortune's  crowning  slope 
The  pillar  of  a  people's  hope — 
The  center  of  a  world's  desire." 

Lincoln  was  the  man  of  the  hour.  He  was  also  the  man  of  the 
century.  Stanton  said  at  his  death  bed,  "Now  he  belongs  to  the 
ages!" 

Never  has  there  been  greater  need  than  to-day,  in  America 
and  throughout  the  world,  for  the  ideal  and  the  spirit  of  the 
Great  Commoner.  It  is  no  idle  question,  then:  "What  would 
Lincoln  say  to  this  generation?"  It  is  a  question  the  very  asking 
of  which  is  significant,  and  the  answer  to  which — if  answer  can 
truly  be  made — will  furnish  light  and  guidance  greatly  needed 
in  a  perplexed  and  troubled  time. 

It  is  not  my  purpose  to  repeat  the  familiar  story  of  his  life, 
nor  recount  his  achievements.  He  needs  no  tribute  of  mine. 
His  place  and  fame  are  secure.  None  has  ever  worded  this  bet- 
ter than  Lowell  in  his  Commemoration  Ode: 

"He  knew  to  bide  his  time, 
And  can  his  fame  abide; 
Still  patient  in  his  simple  faith  sublime, 
'Till  the  wise  years  decide. 
Great  captains,  with  their  guns  and  drums, 
Disturb  our  judgment  for  the  hour. 
Then  the  silence  comes; 
And,  standing  like  a  tower. 
Our  children  shall  behold  his  fame, 
The  kindly-earnest,  wise,  foreseeing  man; 
Sagacious,  patient,  dreading  praise,  not  blame; 
New  birth  of  our  new  soil, 
The  first  American." 


ADDRESS  OF  REV.  J.  PERCIVAL  HUGET,  D.D.  265 

Certainly  Lincoln  is  entitled  to  a  hearing — none  more  so  at 
sucli  a  time.  His  words  will  have  weight  and  value,  the  weight 
of  wisdom  and  the  value  of  vision. 

He  is  entitled  to  a  hearing  by  reason  of  his  deeds.  His  services 
to  his  generation, — all  generations; — to  his  land, — all  lands  and 
all  people — these  entitle  him  to  a  hearing. 

He  merits  a  hearing  because  of  the  greatness  of  his  mind,  the 
power  of  his  intellect,  the  clarity  of  his  reason,  the  sanity  of  his 
judgment,  that  quality  of  his  thought  which  enabled  him  to 
pierce  through  the  unimportant  and  to  penetrate  beneath  the 
secondary  and  superficial,  to  strip  off  the  inconsequential  and 
the  accidental,  and  to  go  straight  and  unfailingly  to  the  real 
issue  and  to  reach  the  real  truth. 

He  commands  a  hearing  by  virtue  of  the  rare  worth  of  his  life, 
the  strength  and  sincerity  of  his  character,  the  simplicity  of  his 
spirit;  by  virtue  of  his  unselfishness  and  sacrificial  devotion  to  a 
great  cause,  his  loyalty  to  truth  and  justice;  his  sublime  and 
unwavering  belief  in  righteousness,  and  in  its  certain  victory; 
his  simple  and  unfaltering  faith  in  God  and  His  moral  govern- 
ment of  the  world. 

"What  would  Lincoln  say?''  Who  dare  attempt  an  answer? 
Who  is  wise  enough,  unselfish  enough,  prophetic  enough  to  speak 
in  this  troubled  hour  the  clear,  sane,  healing,  illumining  words 
he  would  utter  if  he  were  but  here  to  speak  to  his  countrymen 
and  to  the  world? 

There  is  but  one  way  by  which  such  a  question  may  be  an- 
swered; namely,  by  the  repetition  of  words  he  uttered  in  the 
great  public  addresses  of  his  lifetime — and  the  application  of  the 
great  and  enduring  wisdom  of  these  words,  interpreted  in  the 
light  of  his  life  and  his  spirit,  to  the  problems  of  our  own  day. 
In  such  a  way  an  answer  to  the  question  may  be  had,  and  such 


266  THE  EEFVBLICAN  CITTB 

an  answer  will  be  worth  the  seeking  and  worth  pondering  in 
our  hearts  when  it  is  found. 

It  is  one  of  the  most  remarkable  facts  in  our  history  that  this 
man,  born  in  most  humble  circumstances,  whose  youth  and  early 
manhood  were  spent  upon  the  frontier, — ^this  man  who  had  all 
told  scarcely  more  than  six  months  of  regular  schooling,  who 
walked  six  miles  to  borrow  an  English  grammar  and  twenty 
miles  to  borrow  his  first  law  books, — should,  when  he  reached 
the  maturity  of  his  power  and  the  day  of  his  opportunity,  have 
delivered  addresses  ranking  with  those  of  Patrick  Henry  and 
Daniel  Webster;  two  of  them,  the  Gettysburg  Oration  and  the 
Second  Inaugural,  among  the  greatest  ever  uttered  in  our  Eng- 
glish  speech,  or  in  any  speech  at  any  time. 

During  the  five  or  six  years  immediately  preceding  his  Presi- 
dency and  during  the  slightly  more  than  four  years  he  was  in 
office  he  delivered  a  series  of  the  greatest  addresses  in  our  history. 
By  the  use  of  certain  passages  from  six  to  eight  of  these  speeches 
I  propose  to  answer  the  question  I  have  asked. 

The  address  which  Lincoln  himself  considered  as  perhaps  as 
able  a  speech  as  he  ever  made  was  delivered  in  1854,  first  at  the 
State  Fair  at  Springfield  and  later  at  Peoria.  It  was  called 
forth  by  the  repeal  of  the  Missouri  Compromise  in  which  action 
Shephen  A.  Douglas  had  been  a  leader.  It  was  really  the  begin- 
ning of  that  great  debate  between  Lincoln  and  Douglas  which 
continued  for  four  years,  culminating  in  that  series  of  joint  dis- 
cussions which  had  so  much  to  do  with  the  history  of  this  nation. 
This  address,  dealing  with  a  matter  which  is  no  longer  a  problem 
in  our  political  life,  is  referred  to  at  this  time  simply  because  it 
was  upon  this  occasion  that  Lincoln  first  attained  national  prom- 
inence, and  also  first  began  to  deal  with  public  problems  upon 
the  high  level  of  right  and  justice;  which  attitude  of  mind  and 


ADDRESS  OF  REV.  J.  PERCIVAL  HTJGET,  D.D.  267 

method  of  speech,  increasing  as  the  years  went  on,  made  him 
more  and  more  like  the  ancient  Hebrew  prophets  in  personal 
conviction  and  public  utterance. 

Before  passing  to  a  further  consideration  of  some  of  the  ad- 
dresses from  which  lessons  are  drawn  for  our  present  day,  we 
must  notice  briefly  the  most  dramatic  episode  in  all  Lincoln's 
career — the  delivery  of  "The  Lost  Speech  of  Bloomington."     It 
was  in  1856.    The  convention  for  the  organization  of  the  Eepub- 
lican  party  had  assembled  in  Bloomington.     There  were  in  at- 
tendance many  earnest,  even  fanatical,  men  of  different  parties. 
They  were  discordant,  envious,  even  hostile.     There  was  need 
for  some  one  to  unify  them,  to  fuse  them  by  the  heat  of  mingled 
passion  and  logic  into  a  real  unity  of  spirit  and  purpose.    Aware 
of  the  momentous  nature  of  the  occasion  and  stirred  to  great  pas- 
sion, not  alone  by  his  hate  of  slavery  but  by  the  threat  of  dis- 
union, Lincoln,  on  this  occasion,  more  than  at  any  other,  gave 
way  to  that  fiery  nature  which  ordinarily  he  kept  so  well  under 
control.     It  is  recorded  that  he  spoke  slowly  at  first  then  with 
increasing  fire  and  fervor  until  he  fused  the  discordant  elements 
by  the  fire  of  a  great  passion ;  so  that  his  hearers  arose  from  their 
chairs  and  with  pale  faces  and  quivering  lips   pressed   uncon- 
sciously toward  him.    The  whole  man  seemed  to  be  ablaze  with 
passionate  earnestness  which  communicated  itself  to  his  hearers 
so  that  never  was  an  audience  more  electrified.     The  very  re- 
porters, such  as  Joseph  Medill,  later  editor  of  the  Chicago  Trib- 
une, became  so  absorbed  that  they  forgot  to  take  notes;  and  Lin- 
coln himself,  appealed  to  later  to  reproduce  the  address,  was  un- 
able to  set  down  in  order  either  his  thoughts  or  his  language, 
so   that   only  fragments   of   the   lost   speech   exist   to   this   day. 
Herndon,  later  his  law  partner,  declared  that  the  Bloomington 
speech  was  the  one  grand  effort  of  Lincoln's  life;  that  it  was 


268  THE   REPUBLICAN   CLUB 

then  that  the  inner  fires  broke  forth;  that  Lincoln  felt  and  ut- 
tered words  of  enduring  justice;  that  he  seemed  as  one  standing 
before  the  throne  of  eternal  right.  A  great  crisis  in  the  political 
life  of  the  country  had  been  met.  Though  the  words  of  the 
speech  are  not  recorded  it  is  written  upon  the  pages  of  our  na- 
tion's history. 

The  speech  delivered  at  the  meeting  of  the  Republican  State 
Convention  in  Illinois  in  1858  has  its  importance  in  marking  the 
dividing  of  the  ways  for  Lincoln  and  for  the  party  for  which  he 
became  the  acknowledged  leader.  One  way  led  to  compromise 
and  evasion,  the  other  way  led  to  the  enunciation  and  acceptance 
of  moral  principles  as  regnant  in  public  affairs.  When  Lincoln 
showed  the  advance  draft  of  this  address  to  certain  advisers  he 
was  urged  to  change  it  and  omit  a  certain  passage.  These  ad- 
visers declared  that  to  utter  the  words  he  had  in  mind  at  that 
time  would  be  fatal  to  his  political  prospects,  and  that  it  would 
mean  political  suicide.  But  more  than  once  did  Lincoln  commit 
political  suicide,  and  more  than  once  did  he  emerge  as  by  a  resur- 
rection. In  answer  to  his  counsellors  he  said,  "The  time  has 
come  when  these  sentiments  should  be  uttered;  and  if  it  is  de- 
creed that  I  should  go  down  because  of  this  speech,  then  let  me 
go  down  linked  to  the  truth — let  me  die  in  the  advocacy  of  what 
is  just  and  right."  The  particular  quotation  from  this  speech 
from  which  it  derives  its  very  name  is  ''a  house  divided  against 
itself  cannot  stand."  Lincoln,  of  course,  was  referring  to  the 
institution  of  human  slavery.  He  declared  that  the  government 
could  not  endure  permanently  half  slave  and  half  free,  but  that 
it  must  become  all  one  thing  or  all  the  other. 

The  application  of  this  warning  against  a  divided  house  is  evi- 
dent in  its  force  and  timeliness.  In  this  great  time  we  must 
guard  against  anything  divisive,  against  class  distinction,  against 


ADDRESS  OF  REV.  J.  PERCIVAL  HUGET,  D.D.  269 

whatever  militates  against  real  national  unity.  That  man,  who- 
ever he  may  be,  who,  for  private  advantage  and  selfish  ends — or 
even  for  the  promotion  of  the  interests  of  a  party — seeks  to  set 
North  against  South,  or  East  against  West,  interest  against  in- 
terest, or  class  against  class,  is  at  this  time  a  traitor  to  his  land 
and  to  humanity.  The  unity  of  our  citizenship  must  be  main- 
tained. There  is  no  room  for  a  divided  loyalty.  Partisanship 
must  end  at  the  water  line.  All  men  under  the  flag  must  be 
whole-heartedly  committed  to  the  great  cause  to  which  we  have 
pledged  our  support. 

There  is  also  a  wider  application  in  the  field  of  international 
unity.  A  world  divided  against  itself  cannot  stand.  The  day 
has  passed  when  one  part  of  humanity  can  live  under  one  condi- 
tion and  another  part  under  another.  The  world  must  become  all 
autocratic  or  all  democratic.  In  a  new  sense  it  must  become  all 
slave  or  all  free.  This  is  the  far  reaching  significance  and  must 
be  the  far  reaching  outcome  of  the  world  war.  The  future  must 
be  controlled  by  kings  or  be  free  peoples.  The  world  has  become 
too  small  to  be  divided. 

The  next  speech  to  which  attention  is  called  was  delivered  in 
Clinton,  111.  During  a  speech  earlier  in  the  day  Douglas  had 
charged  Lincoln  with  being  in  favor  of  negro  equality,  a  charge 
which  at  that  time  and  in  that  part  of  the  State  he  thought 
would  work  serious  damage  to  Lincoln.  But  Lincoln  was  brave 
enough  to  meet  the  challenge.  In  his  speech  that  evening  he 
said:  ''Judge  Douglas  charges  me  with  being  in  favor  of  negro 
equality.  I  am  guilty  of  hating  servitude  and  loving  freedom. 
While  I  would  not  carry  the  equality  of  the  races  to  the  extent 
charged  by  my  adversary,  I  am  happy  to  confess  before  you  that 
in  some  things  the  black  man  is  the  equal  of  the  white  man — in 


270  THE   REPUBLICAN   CLUB 


the  right  to  eat  the  bread  his  own  hands  have  earned  he  is  the 
equal  of  Judge  Douglas  or  any  living  man." 

Judge  Weldon,  who  was  present,  says  when  Lincoln  spoke  the 
last  sentence  he  had  lifted  himself  to  his  full  height,  and  as  he 
reached  his  hands  toward  the  stars  of  that  still  night  then  and 
there  fell  from  his  lips  one  of  the  most  sublime  expressions  of 
American  statesmanship.  '^The  effect  was  grand,  the  cheers 
tremendous." 

It  must  be  remembered  that  this  was  said  before  the  Civil  War, 
when  it  took  high  courage  and  high  statesmanship  to  declare  the 
rights  of  men  then  slaves.  If  Lincoln  were  among  us  to-day  he 
would  with  like  passion  declare  the  rights  of  the  common  man. 
That  democracy  in  which  we  believe  and  for  which  we  fight  was 
also  very  dear  to  his  heart.  He  stood  as  champion  of  the  rights 
of  the  humblest  citizen.  To  him  a  place  equal  to  the  most  favored 
was  rightfully  to  be  given  to  the  humblest  toiler.  So  must  we 
in  this  our  day  also  ever  recall  that  the  men  who  perform  the 
labor,  bear  the  burdens,  endure  the  sorrows  of  the  world,  must 
be  reckoned  with  by  all  who  seek  to  rule.  Before  the  law  and 
in  fundamental  human  rights  all  men  are  equal! 

A  second  application  of  the  sentiments  of  this  address  may 
properly  be  made  in  the  discussion  of  the  rights  of  peoples.  Lin- 
coln would  give  heartiest  support  to  that  phrase  which  our  Presi- 
dent has  uttered  and  which  is  certain  to  have  large  place  in  the 
shaping  of  the  peace  that  is  to  come — "the  self-determination  of 
peoples."  It  is  perhaps  not  too  much  to  say  that  this  will  be  the 
final  outcome  of  the  present  war,  that  the  time  has  come  when 
every  national  group  bound  together  by  ties  of  race  and  custom 
and  language  must  be  given  freedom  to  work  out  its  own  destiny. 
The  world  has  long  enough  suffered  the  injustices  of  alien  rule. 
As  in  his  discussion  of  the  slavery  question  Lincoln  declared  that 


ADDRESS  OF  REV.  J.  PERCIVAL  HUGET,  D.D.  271 

no  man  is  good  enongh  to  own  another  man,  so  would  he  now 
voice  the  gprowing  conviction  of  the  world  that  no  race  is  good 
enough  to  control  the  destinies  of  another  race.  He  put  the  mat- 
ter most  clearly  when  he  said,  "When  the  white  man  governs 
himself,  that  I  acknowledge  is  self-government;  but  when  the 
white  man  governs  himself  and  another  man  besides,  that  I  call 
despotism." 

The  Lincoln-Douglas  debates  during  the  summer  and  fall  of 
1858  may  be  treated  as  one  utterance,  repeated  and  amplified  at 
many  times  and  places.  It  was  the  great  series  in  which  Lincoln 
met  the  "Little  Giant."  Douglas  is  thought  of  by  many,  espe- 
cially of  the  younger  generation,  simply  as  the  opponent  of  Lin- 
coln. He  died  while  the  Civil  War  was  still  raging  and  his  re- 
markable genius  and  his  final  high  patriotism  may  not  be  fully 
known  to  men  of  the  present  date.  He  was  indeed  a  man  of  most 
remarkable  ability.  Think  of  this  youth  of  twenty  walking  into 
Winchester,  111.,  in  1833  with  thirty-seven  cents  in  his  pocket; 
who,  in  less  than  fifteen  years,  and  before  he  himself  was  thirty- 
five  years  of  age,  had  been  first  a  clerk  at  an  auction  sale ;  second, 
a  teacher;  then  a  student  of  the  law,  and  later  admitted  to  the 
practice  of  his  profession;  Attorney  General  of  the  State;  Reg- 
istrar of  Deeds  by  the  President's  appointment;  member  of  the 
State  Legislature;  Secretary  of  State;  Justice  of  the  Supreme 
Court;  member  of  the  lower  house  of  the  United  States  Congress; 
and  United  States  Senator. 

It  is  only  justice  also  to  recall  his  later  services.  Although 
the  election  of  Lincoln  to  the  Presidency  resulted  from  the  defeat 
of  Douglas  himself  and  thereby  wrested  from  him  the  great  prize 
which  had  been  the  ambition  of  his  life,  yet  in  the  time  of  the 
nation's  great  need  he  rose  above  selfishness  and  self-seeking  to 
the  level  of  the  true  patriot.    The  story  is  recorded  that  at  the 


272  THE   REPUBLICAN   CLUB 

very  moment  of  Lincoln's  inauguration,  Douglas  held  the  famous 
high  hat  which  Lincoln  had  removed  and  for  which  he  was  awk- 
wardly seeking  a  resting  place.  I  have  learned  from  one  well 
informed  of  the  events  of  that  period  that,  when  Sumter  was  fired 
upon,  within  a  few  hours'  time  Douglas  was  seen  wending  his  way 
to  the  White  House  where  he  was  closeted  for  more  than  an  hour 
with  Lincoln  in  one  of  the  most  momentous  conferences  which  ever 
transpired  in  our  history.  What  transpired  in  that  conference 
we  do  not  know,  but  Douglas  immediately  thereafter  telegraphed 
to  his  supporters  in  Illinois  and  issued  a  public  statement  to  the 
million  Northern  Democrats  who  had  voted  for  him  urging  them 
all  to  the  support  of  the  Union.  He  also  immediately  returned 
to  Illinois  and  in  that  then  divided  State  before  a  joint  meeting 
of  the  two  houses  of  the  Illinois  Legislature  urged  the  State  to 
stand  by  the  Union  and  to  support  the  President.  It  is  perhaps 
not  too  much  to  say  that  Douglas  contributed  by  these  patriotic 
acts  very  largely  to  the  preservation  of  the  Union. 

In  challenging  Douglas  to  these  joint  debates,  Lincoln  mani- 
fested a  far-seeing  political  sagacity.  He  so  conducted  the  cam- 
paign that  though  Douglas  won  the  immediate  prize  of  re-election 
to  the  United  States  Senate,  he  did  so  upon  a  platform  which  re- 
sulted in  the  division  of  the  Northern  and  Southern  Democracy 
and  which  consequently  made  possible  the  election  of  Lincoln 
as  the  first  Republican  President.  These  debates  aroused  enar- 
mous  interest.  They  were  in  very  truth  battles  of  the  giants. 
They  have  been  characterized  as  the  greatest  debates  in  history. 
I  select  a  typical  sentence  from  the  debate  at  Galesburg,  111., 
now  recorded  on  a  bronze  tablet  opposite  the  main  entrance  to 
Old  Main  at  Knox  College:  "They  who  contend  that  one  who 
wants  to  own  slaves  has  a  right  to  do  so  are  blowing  out  the 
moral  lights  around  us."     Here  Lincoln  clearly  put  the  issue  of 


ADDRESS  OF  REV.  J.  PERCIVAL  HUGET,  D.D.  273 


human  slavery  upon  moral  grounds.  This  had  heen  done  before 
by  such  radical  abolitionists  as  Garrison  and  Lovejoy,  and  now 
Lincoln  as  a  political  leader  and  spokesman  for  a  party  lifted  a 
matter  before  discussed  upon  the  levels  of  political  expediency 
to  the  higher  level  of  ethics. 

In  such  a  time  as  this  there  is  need  for  the  voice  that  should 
declare  that  the  issue  of  statesmanship  must  finally  be  met  on 
the  level  of  moral  principles,  that  the  ultimate  controlling  ele- 
ments in  international  relations  must  be  the  questions  of  justice 
and  of  righteousness.     They  seek  to  blow  out  the  moral  lights 
around  us,  to  overturn  the  very  bases  of  national  security  and 
human  progress  who  declare,  in  false  philosophy  and  by  inhuman 
deeds  of  unhallowed  war,  that  a  people  which  desires  for  itself 
power  and  supremacy  and  a  place  in  the  sun  has  a  right  to  dis- 
regard international  law,   violate  treaties,   invade   and   oppress 
neutral  nations,  and  endeavor  to  gain  military  advantage  and  ill- 
won  victory  by  the  devices  of  the  savage.    No  measure  of  scien- 
tific advancement  can  claim  exemption  from  the  solemn  judgment 
of  the  nobler  sense  of  humanity  when  that  science  is  used  in  the 
interest  of  organized  barbarism.     As  Lincoln  wrote  on  one  oc- 
casion, "Men  are  not  fiattered  by  being  told  that  there  is  a  dif- 
ference of  purpose  between  the  Almighty  and  them.    To  deny  it, 
however,  in  this  case,  is  to  deny  that  there  is  a  God  governing 
the  world."    In  just  such  words  would  he  again  denounce  those 
whose  unholy  aims  and  aspirations  run  counter  to  the  ethical 
sense  and  moral  judgment  of  the  civilized  world. 

What  was  in  some  respects  the  greatest  public  success  of  Lin- 
coln's life  was  the  Cooper  Institute  speech  delivered  in  this  city 
early  in  1860.  Lincoln  had  received  an  invitation  from  a  young 
men's  society  in  Plymouth  Church  to  come  to  Brooklyn  and  de- 
liver a  lecture.     For  it  he  was  to  receive  $200.     He  had  been 


274  THE   REPUBLICAN   CLUB 

neglecting  his  law  practice  and  was  in  need  of  money  and  this 
fee  looked  very  attractive  to  him.  At  the  same  time  he  was 
fearful  that  the  young  men  would  lose  money  by  the  venture 
and  so  accepted  with  some  hesitation.  His  concern  was  the 
greater  when  he  reached  New  York  and  found  that  the  original 
plan  had  been  abandoned  and  that  the  address  was  to  be  delivered 
in  Cooper  Institute.  But  when  the  night  arrived  that  great 
building  was  thronged  with  an  audience  which  contained  prac- 
tically every  man  of  prominence  in  the  political,  intellectual  and 
business  life  of  the  metropolis.  Lincoln  was  escorted  to  the  plat- 
form by  Horace  Greeley  and  David  Dudley  Field.  William  CuUen 
Bryant  presided.  Joseph  Choate,  who  was  present,  declared  that 
Lincoln  came  an  unheralded  stranger  and  went  away  wearing  the 
laurels  of  a  great  triumph.  When  he  spoke  he  was  transformed, 
his  eye  kindled,  his  voice  rang,  his  face  shone  and  seemed  to  light 
up  the  whole  assembly.  For  an  hour  and  a  half  he  held  his 
audience  in  the  hollow  of  his  hand.  The  grand  simplicities  of 
the  Bible  with  which  he  was  so  familiar  were  reflected  in  his 
discourse.  It  was  marvellous  to  see  how  this  untutored  man  by 
mere  self-discipline  and  his  own  unchastened  spirit  had  found 
his  way  to  the  grandeur  and  the  strength  of  absolute  simplicity. 

He  concluded  with  the  familiar  sentence,  "Let  us  have  faith 
that  right  makes  might,  and  in  that  faith  let  us  to  the  end  do 
our  duty  as  we  understand  it." 

It  was  with  a  similar  faith  in  the  triumph  of  righteousness 
that  Lincoln  replied  to  a  delegation  of  ministers  who  waited  upon 
him  in  the  White  House  and  whose  spokesman  said,  "Let  us  pray 
that  the  Lord  may  be  on  our  side.''  Lincoln's  reply  was  imme- 
diate— "Let  us  rather  pray  that  we  may  be  found  on  the  Lord's 
side." 

There  is  a  phrase  in  this  sentence  from  the  Cooper  Institute 


ADDRESS  OF  REV.  J.  PERCIVAL  HUGET,  D.D.  275 

speech  which  must  not  be  forgotten.  Lincoln  not  only  called  to 
our  minds  the  fact  that  right  makes  might,  but  added  the  further 
words  we  must  always  hear  and  obey,  ''in  that  faith  let  us  to  the 
end  do  our  duty  as  we  understand  it." 

High  and  solemn  words!  And  words  which  we  may  well  take 
to  heart;  as,  with  no  seeking  of  either  private  or  public  gain, 
with  no  end  or  purpose  beyond  that  openly  avowed,  with  passions 
disciplined  and  restrained — but  yet  with  a  holy  indignation  at 
wrongs  revealed — we  enter  the  mighty  and  momentous  struggle 
for  the  life  of  the  world,  for  civilization  and  righteousness,  for 
the  rights  of  little  peoples  and  common  men,  and  for  the  future 
peace  of  the  world. 

If  the  Cooper  Institute  speech  was  one  of  the  great  triumphs 
of  Lincoln's  career  the  first  Inaugural  was  one  of  the  most  path- 
etic and  yet  as  viewed  from  the  standpoint  of  history,  deeply 
impressive  moments  in  his  life.  Lincoln  perceived,  as  perhaps 
few  men  of  his  time  did,  how  great  was  the  likelihood  of  serious 
difficulty  with  the  South,  and  how  greatly  to  be  dreaded  and 
earnestly  to  be  avoided  was  the  war  which  he  foresaw.  Deter- 
mined above  almost  everything  else  that  the  Union  should  be  pre- 
served at  whatever  cost  he  labored  most  earnestly  to  persuade 
the  people  of  the  Southern  States  that  they  would  be  dealt  with 
justly  and  that  the  issues  which  were  dividing  North  and  South 
might  be  worked  out  without  the  terrible  experience  of  war. 
He  therefore  pleaded  with  the  South  not  to  precipitate  strife  by 
hasty  action.  In  this  first  Inaugural  is  this  notable  passage,  "We 
are  not  enemies  but  friends.  We  must  not  be  enemies.  Though 
passion  may  have  strained  it  must  not  break  the  bonds  of  affec- 
tion. The  mystic  chords  of  memory,  stretching  from  every  battle- 
field and  patriot  grave  to  every  living  heart  and  hearthstone,  all 
over  this  broad  land,  will  yet  swell  the  chorus  of  the  Union,  when 


276  THE   REPUBLICAN   CLUB 

again  touched,  as  surely  they  will  be,  by  the  better  angels  of  our 
nature." 

In  this  Inaugural  address  he  uttered  this  sentence  which  we 
may  well  ponder  in  this  day,  "Why  should  there  not  be  a  patient 
confidence  in  the  ultimate  justice  of  the  people?" 

Confidence  in  the  people!  When  have  kings  and  autocracies 
ever  been  willing  to  trust  the  people?  Yet  reformers  and  patriots 
have  ever  turned  at  last  from  rulers  and  nobles  to  the  masses. 
And  here  the  Great  Commoner,  who  had  come  from  the  cabin  of 
the  pioneer,  who  knew  and  trusted  common  folks,  voiced  a  senti- 
ment which  is  almost  an  echo  of  the  long  unanswered  question 
of  the  centuries,  "why  should  we  not  be  willing  to  trust  the  utli- 
mate  wisdom  and  justice  of  the  people?"  There  is  no  other  way 
out  for  Democracy.  For  popular  government  the  way  out  is  the 
way  ahead.  The  only  cure  for  the  mistakes  and  failures  of  free- 
dom is  in  a  larger  and  truer  liberty! 

There  are  two  addresses  by  Lincoln  which  by  virtue  of  their 
noble  language  and  exalted  thought,  their  fitness  for  the  time 
when  uttered,  and  their  lasting  value,  rise  above  all  his  other 
words  and  above  everything  uttered  by  his  contemporaries.  These 
are  the  Gettysburg  Oration  and  the  Second  Inauagural. 

The  Gettysburg  Oration  was  delivered  on  November  19,  1863, 
upon  the  occasion  of  the  dedication  of  a  national  cemetery  on 
the  field  of  the  decisive  batle  of  the  war.  It  is  said  that  the  in- 
vitation to  President  Lincoln  was  almost  an  afterthought,  that 
the  original  plans  of  the  committee  did  not  include  provision  for 
the  address  which  has  become  so  famous;  but  that  finally,  as  a 
matter  of  propriety,  an  invitation  was  extended  to  the  President, 
and  upon  his  acceptance  of  the  invitation  a  place  for  him  on  the 
programme  was  designated.  The  address,  so  brief  and  yet  so 
complete,    followed    a    masterly    oration    by    Edward    Everett. 


ADDHESS  OF  EEV.  J.  PEHCIVAL  HUGET,  D.D.  277 

Though  occupying  scarcely  more  than  two  minutes  of  time  it  con- 
tained every  element  of  a  great  oration.  The  first  sentence  set 
forth  as  fully  as  could  have  been  done  in  an  hour's  time  the 
historic  background.  *Tour  score  and  seven  years  ago  our  fathers 
brought  forth  on  this  continent  a  new  Nation,  conceived  in  lib- 
erty, and  dedicated  to  the  proposition  that  all  men  are  created 
equal."  The  second  sentence  gives  in  few  words  a  characteriza- 
tion of  the  great  conflict.  "Now  we  are  engaged  in  a  great  civil 
war,  testing  whether  that  nation,  or  any  nation  so  conceived  and 
so  dedicated,  can  long  endure."  The  next  two  sentences  give  the 
local  setting  and  occasion,  "We  are  met  on  a  great  battlefield 
of  that  war.  We  have  come  to  dedicate  a  portion  of  that  field 
as  a  final  resting  place  for  those  who  here  gave  their  lives  that 
that  nation  might  live."  Then  Lincoln  goes  on  to  say,  "It  is 
altogether  fitting  and  proper  that  we  should  do  this.  But  in  a 
larger  sense,  we  cannot  dedicate — we  cannot  consecrate — we  can- 
not hallow — this  ground.  The  brave  men,  living  and  dead,  who 
struggled  here  have  consecrated  it  far  above  our  poor  power  to 
add  or  detract."  Then  came  one  of  the  most  sublime  and  daring 
moments  in  human  speech.  Lincoln  had  come  to  dedicate  a  few 
acres  of  ground  as  a  soldier's  cemetery.  He  lifted  his  eyes  to  the 
faces  of  the  living.  Beyond  them  he  saw  yet  others,  a  nation  of 
men  and  women  committed  to  a  great  cause.  Beyond  them  he 
saw  their  children,  generation  after  generation  of  men  and 
women  yet  to  come.  It  may  be  that  he  saw  yet  more  —  the 
nations  of  the  earth!  Speaking  almost  like  a  prophet  of  old  he 
turned  from  the  dedication  of  the  resting  place  of  the  dead  to 
the  dedication  of  a  people  to  a  great  cause.  He  said,  "It  is  for 
us,  the  living,  rather,  to  be  dedicated  here  to  the  unfinished  work 
which  they  who  fought  here  have  thus  far  so  nobly  advanced. 
*     *     *     That  here  we  highly  resolve  that  these  dead  shall  not 


278  THE   REPUBLICAN   CLUB 

have  died  in  vain;  that  this  Nation,  nnder  God,  shall  have  a  new 
birth  of  freedom;  and  that  government  of  the  people,  by  the  peo- 
ple, for  the  people,  shall  not  perish  from  the  earth." 

That  moment,  that  solemn  act  of  dedication — by  one,  who,  in 
very  truth  stood  as  a  prophet  of  the  eternal  God  in  behalf  of 
hnman  liberty,  made  it  impossible  that  America  should  perma- 
nently stay  out  of  this  war. 

There  are  three  points  at  which  application  can  most  fittingly 
be  made  to-day.  First,  as  Lincoln  said  more  than  fifty  years  ago 
so  say  we  now,  *'These  dead  must  not  have  died  in  vain.  And 
second,  of  course,  is  the  inescapable  application  of  the  words 
which  have  become  so  familiar  to  us  all,  "government  of  the  peo- 
ple, by  the  people,  for  the  people."  It  is  for  democracy  that  the 
world  is  struggling.  It  is  for  the  rights  of  people  that  the  bat- 
tles have  been  fought  and  that  the  armies  of  the  nations  are  still 
embattled. 

But  there  is  a  third  point  in  this  address  which  I  confess  I 
had  not  until  recently  noticed  or  felt  in  its  full  power.  As  Lin- 
coln closed  it  was  with  the  assertion  and  prophecy  that  popular 
government  should  not  perish;  but  he  did  not  say  from  the  State 
of  New  York  or  from  the  United  States  of  America,  or  from  this 
or  that  nation.  He  did  say,  "it  shall  not  perish  from  the  earth." 
That  vision  will  not  be  fully  made  real  until  every  man  the  world 
around  lives  under  a  government  in  which  he  has  a  voice  and  a 
part,  and  which  is  constituted  and  administered  in  his  behalf. 

The  Second  Inaugural  was  delivered  when  the  end  of  the  war 
was  almost  at  hand.  In  it  the  discerning  reader  will  find  the 
presence  of  a  vision  of  the  future  and  wise  plans  for  reconstruc- 
tion and  reconciliation.     Lincoln  was  much  of  a  mystic,  and  in 


ADDRESS  OF  REV.  J.  PERCIVAL  HUGET,  D.D.  279 

these  last  years  of  his  life  he  became  more  and  more  imbued  with 
a  sense  of  divine  purpose  and  leadership.  Beyond  all  question 
he  became  convinced  also  that  the  great  task  ahead  was  that  of 
dealing  with  the  South  after  the  war  had  ended.  In  Lincoln's 
far-seeing  plans  there  was  no  bitterness  nor  hatred,  no  evidence 
of  an  intolerance  in  victory;  but  such  a  magnanimity  and  such 
a  brooding  tenderness  in  his  whole  attitude  toward  the  States 
which  he  declared  could  not  ^'return"  to  the  Union  for  they  had 
never  been  out  of  it;  such  a  longing  for  the  healing  of  every 
hurt  and  binding  up  of  every  wound  that  be  became  almost  Christ- 
like in  his  purpose  and  even  in  his  death.  For  it  may  be  that  a 
wiser  history  can  discern  that  in  the  very  laying  down  of  his 
life  Lincoln  did  more  for  the  real  restoration  of  the  Union  than 
he  could  have  done  even  had  he  lived.  His  death  had  in  it  the 
quality  of  an  Atonement.  His  blood  was  the  price  of  national 
Kedemption.  His  spirit,  his  words,  his  deeds,  his  death,  all 
wrought  together  for  the  accomplishment  of  a  great  Reconcil- 
iation. 

This  longing  for  reconciliation  breathed  throughout  the  Sec- 
ond Inaugural  address  so  nobly  that  the  London  Times  called  it 
"the  most  sublime  State  paper  of  the  century."  The  two  closing 
paragraphs  indicate  the  basis  of  moral  judgment  and  of  Christ- 
like charity  upon  which  this  address  spoken  to  North  and  South 
both  was  framed.  'Tondly  do  we  hope — fervently  do  we  pray — 
that  this  mighty  scourge  of  war  may  speedily  pass  away.  Yet, 
if  God  wills  that  it  continue  until  all  the  wealth  piled  by  the 
bondman's  two  hundred  and  fifty  years  of  unrequited  toil  shall 
be  sunk,  and  until  every  drop  of  blood  drawn  with  the  lash  shall 
be  paid  by  another  drawn  with  the  sword,  as  was  said  three 


280  THE   REPUBLICAN    CLUB 

thousand  years  ago,  so  still  it  must  be  said,  *The  judgments  of  the 
Lord  are  true  and  righteous  altogether.' 

''With  malice  toward  none;  with  charity  for  all;  with  firm- 
ness in  the  right,  as  God  gives  us  to  see  the  right,  let  us  strive 
on  to  finish  the  work  we  are  in;  to  bind  up  the  Nation's  wounds, 
to  care  for  him  who  shall  have  borne  the  battle,  and  for  his 
widow,  and  his  orphan — to  do  all  which  may  achieve  and  cherish 
a  just  and  lasting  peace  among  ourselves,  and  with  all  nations." 

How  timely  do  all  these  words  of  the  Martyred  President  seem. 
It  is  as  though  they  had  been  uttered  but  yesterday.  It  is  as 
though  he  himself  once  more  stood  before  us  to  declare  unto  us 
the  great  truth  for  the  seeing  of  which  our  own  eyes  had  been 
too  blinded  and  for  the  hearing  of  which  our  ears  too  deafened 
by  the  tumult  of  a  terrible  time.  Across  the  years  his  voice 
sounds  clear.  He  proclaims  the  unalterable  truths  of  justice  and 
of  judgment;  he  lays  firm  the  bases  of  a  new  era  upon  the  im- 
movable foundations  of  a  broad  humanity  and  an  enduring  lib- 
erty; he  gains  for  us  the  sharing  through  his  prophetic  foreseeing 
of  the  vision  of  the  future  of  a  world  redemmed  from  slavery  and 
fear  and  highly  dedicated  by  the  sacrifices  of  heroes  to  the  well 
being  of  all  the  peoples  of  the  earth. 

Such  were  the  words  of  Lincoln.  And  such  is  his  message  to 
our  day.    He  being  dead  yet  speaketh! 

"And  so  they  buried  Lincoln?    Strange  and  vain! 
Has  any  creature  thought  of  Lincoln  hid 
In  any  vault,  'neath  any  coffin  lid, 
In  all  the  years  since  that  wild  spring  of  pain? 
'Tis  false — he  never  in  the  grave  has  lain. 
You  could  not  bury  him  although  you  slid 
Upon  his  clay  the  Cheops  pyramid 
Or  heaped  it  with  the  Rocky  Mountain  chain. 


ADDRESS  OF  EEV.  J.  PERCIVAL  HUGET,  D.D.  281 


They  slew  themselves;  they  but  set  Lincoln  free. 
In  all  the  world  his  great  heart  beats  as  strong, 
Shall  beat  while  pulses  throb  to  chivalry 
And  burn  with  hate  of  tyranny  and  wrong. 
Whoever  will  may  find  him  anywhere 
Save  in  the  grave!    Not  there,  he  is  not  there!'* 


(James  S.  Mackey.) 


THE   THIRTY-FOURTH 

ANNUAL  LINCOLN  DINNER 

of  the 

NATIONAL  REPUBLICAN   CLUB 

At  the  Waldorf-Astoria 
FEBRUARY  12,  1920 


Address  of 


DR.  NICHOLAS  MURRAY  BUTLER 


DR.  NICHOLAS   MURRAY  BUTLER 

Publicist;  President  of  Columbia  University,  New 
York  City;  Author  of  many  volumes  on  Educational 
and  Political  affairs;  Honored  by  the  conferring  of 
a  number  of  University  Degrees,  and  of  Foreign  Dec- 
orations. 


ADDRESS    OF 

DR.  NICHOLAS  MURRAY  BUTLER 


It  was  my  good  fortune  to  be  born  and  brought  up  under  the 
shadow  of  the  name  and  the  fame  of  Abraham  Lincoln.  It  is 
family  tradition  that  I  was  raised  in  my  mother's  arms  to  see 
him  pass,  but  unfortunately  no  trace  of  so  memorable  an  event 
was  left  on  an  infant's  memory.  His  portrait  hung  on  the  walls 
of  my  childhood  home.  His  words  were  constantly  quoted  with 
reverence,  and  the  Gettysburg  Speech  was  early  committed  to 
memory  as  if  it  were  part  of  Holy  Writ.  The  still  youthful 
veterans  of  the  Civil  War  hailed  his  name  with  choking  voices 
and  with  tears  in  their  eyes,  and  the  emancipated  slave  threw 
himself  on  his  knees  and  raised  his  eyes  to  Heaven  at  the  sound 
of  Lincoln's  name.  What  manner  of  man  was  this  who  had  be- 
come the  idol  of  a  free  people  and  the  very  incarnation  of  their 
loftiest  spirit  and  their  noblest  ideals?  Years  have  passed  and 
his  stately,  somber  figure  stands  out  every  day  more  clearly 
against  the  background  of  history.  Little  by  little  one  comes  to 
understand  the  full  meaning  of  Lowell's  noble  description  of 
Lincoln  in  the  Commemoration  Ode  as 

The  kindly,  earnest,  brave,  foreseeing  man, 
Sagacious,  patient,  dreading  praise,  not  blame. 
New  birth  of  our  new  soil,  the  first  American, 


286  NATIONAL   REPUBLICAN   CLUB 

and  then  to  comprehend  the  farseeing  vision  of  Stanton  when,  as 
he  turned  his  grief -stricken  face  from  the  death-bed  of  Lincoln, 
he  exclaimed:  "And  now  he  belongs  to  the  ages." 

Surely  no  citizen  of  New  York  can  be  asked  to  stand  upon  the 
platform  at  Cooper  Union  to  speak  to  the  public  without  bearing 
in  mind  that  that  place  is  famous  forever  because  Abraham  Lin- 
coln spoke  there.  Surely  no  American  can  go  unmoved  to  Spring- 
field and  stand  uncovered  before  the  tomb  of  Lincoln  without 
feeling  that  he  is  at  Liberty's  greatest  shrine.  Surely  no  Ameri- 
can can  visit  the  old  Cabinet  Room  at  the  White  House  and  look 
from  its  windows  out  across  the  low-lying  ground  and  over  the 
Potomac  to  the  Virginia  shore,  without  remembering  that  in  that 
room  Lincoln  struggled  with  hope  and  with  despair;  that  in  that 
room  Lincoln's  breaking  heart  was  compelled  to  listen  to  bitter 
and  caustic  criticism  alike  of  his  policies  and  purpose,  and  that 
from  that  very  window  he  had  been  able  to  see  the  watch-fires 
of  a  hostile  army  while  he  counted  the  hours  until  he  should  hear 
that  the  capital  was  still  safe.  From  whatever  side  we  approach 
Abraham  Lincoln  we  are  stirred  to  our  depths  by  the  feeling  that 
in  him  there  dwelt  and  lived  and  spoke  the  very  spirit  of  all  that 
is  best  in  America. 

What  new  thing  can  be  said  of  Abraham  Lincoln?  Oratory 
has  long  since  exhausted  its  most  sonorous  periods.  Poetry  has 
sung  both  its  dirges  and  its  paeans,  rhetoric  has  piled  epithet 
upon  epithet  and  praise  upon  praise;  yet  Abraham  Lincoln  rises 
above  it  all.  There  is  a  wonderful  line  in  Mr.  Drinkwater's 
gripping  drama:  "Lonely  is  the  man  who  understands,"  he  writes. 
May  not  this  perhaps  be  the  key  to  the  character  of  Abraham 
Lincoln?  Abraham  Lincoln  understood.  He  saw  deep  down  into 
the  workings  of  the  human  heart  and  he  felt,  as  a  skilled  phy- 
sician feels  the  pulse  of  his  patient,  the  slightest  movement  of  its 


ADDRESS  OF  DR.  NICHOLAS  MURRAY  BUTLER  287 

elemental  passions.  He  pierced  at  a  glance  the  workings  of  the 
human  mind,  and  with  a  bit  of  humor  or  with  an  epithet  he 
would  strip  the  mask  of  hypocrisy,  or  selfishness,  of  meanness,  of 
vanity  or  of  treason  from  the  shrewdest  human  face.  Abraham 
Lincoln  was  lonely  because  he  understood.  Here  is  the  secret  of 
the  pathos  of  the  man;  here  is  the  answer  to  the  question  why, 
in  our  search  to  understand  Lincoln,  he  so  constantly  eludes  us. 
He  could  understand  each  one  of  us,  but  no  one  of  us  can  fully 
understand  and  interpret  him. 

There  is  something  compelling  about  the  conception  of  a  cen- 
tury of  years.  One  century  slips  noiselessly  into  another,  to  be 
sure,  but  human  imagination  has  marked  off  the  centuries  as  if 
high  barriers  were  built  between  them.  The  nineteenth  century, 
as  we  can  already  see,  was  a  century  of  transition.  The  political 
and  the  social  revolutions  that  were  begun  as  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury drew  to  its  close,  marched  steadily  and  constructively  for- 
ward through  the  nineteenth.  The  industrial  revolution  which 
has  transformed  our  economic  and  our  social  life,  is  the  very 
child  of  the  nineteenth  century.  That  century  was  a  period  rich 
in  human  discovery  and  human  achievement.  It  saw  luxuries 
pass  first  into  comforts  and  then  into  necessities  of  life.  It 
watched  a  constant  and  striking  succession  of  scientists,  histo- 
rians, poets  and  prophets  from  Goethe  to  Walt  Whitman.  Yet  as 
we  stand  off  from  the  nineteenth  century  and  try  to  interpret  its 
meaning  in  history,  two  great  figures  stand  out  clearly  from  all 
this  as  representative  of  its  main  opposing  forces.  Each  is  the 
figure  of  a  man  of  modest  beginnings,  who  rose  to  great  eminence 
and  exceptional  power  and  who  will  always  live  in  history.  The 
one  was  animated  by  the  ambition  to  rule,  and  the  other  by  the 
zeal  to  serve.  The  one  gathered  up  in  his  own  hands  all  the 
forces  of  reaction  and  hurled  them  in  the  face  of  the  onward- 


288  IJATIOXAL   HEPUBLIGAU    CLUB 

marching  armies  of  freedom.  The  other  called  upon  these  armies 
of  freedom  to  follow  where  he  led,  and  through  them  dedicated 
a  nation  to  the  cause  that  government  of  the  people,  by  the  peo- 
ple, for  the  people  should  not  perish  from  the  earth.  The  one 
endeavored  to  turn  backward  the  hands  upon  the  face  of  the 
clock  of  time,  the  other  gladly  watched  and  guarded  those  hands 
as  they  steadily  ticked  out  the  progress  of  the  race.  The  one 
man  was  Napoleon  Bonaparte,  Emperor  of  the  French,  who  had 
conquered  Continental  Europe  at  forty,  and  who  died  at  fifty-two 
in  exile  on  the  lonely  rock  of  St.  Helena.  The  other  was  Abraham 
Lincoln,  sixteenth  President  of  the  United  States,  who  had  yet 
to  achieve  his  fame  at  the  age  when  Napoleon  was  sent  into 
exile,  and  who  was  murdered  at  fifty-six  by  the  devilish  spirit 
of  hate,  and  died  amid  the  tears  and  the  fervent  blessings  of  his 
stricken  fellow-countrymen  and  of  an  anxious  world. 

Great  personalities  are  the  embodiment  and  the  spokesmen  of 
great  forces.  They  are  more  than  persons,  they  are  events. 
Napoleon  imposed  his  mighty  will  upon  France  at  thirty,  an  age 
at  which  Lincoln  was  still  struggling  with  poverty  and  living  in 
relative  isolation.  Napoleon  represents  genius  at  its  highest  and 
its  worst.  His  was  a  stupendous  combination  of  military  with 
civil  genius,  of  wide  comprehension  with  grasp  of  minutest  detail, 
together  with  prodigious  vitality  of  mind  and  body.  Lord  Dudley 
wrote  of  Napoleon:  "He  has  made  all  future  renown  impossible." 
One  wonders. 

Lincoln,  on  the  other  hand,  was  the  true  child  of  his  race  and 
of  his  people.  Without  formal  school  training  or  discipline,  with- 
out pretence  to  scholarship,  his  was  a  nature  in  which  mind  com- 
bined with  heart  and  heart  with  mind,  to  create  a  personality 
unique  in  all  history.  His  qualities  were  not  super-human,  but 
intensely  human.     His  natural  wisdom,  his  native  wit,  his  deep 


ADDRESS  OF  DR.  NICHOLAS  MURRAY  BUTLER  289 

and  sincere  human  sympathy,  his  intuitive  grasp  upon  the  prin- 
ciples and  ideals  of  American  life  and  government,  all  united  to 
make  him  the  representative  of  America  before  a  vote  had  been 
cast  for  his  name.  The  people  only  acknowledged  and  ratified 
what  Divine  Providence  and  nature  had  done.  Yet  it  was  of 
this  man  that  Wendell  Phillips  angrily  cried  out:  "Who  is  this 
huckster  in  politics?    Who  is  this  county  court  advocate?" 

Napoleon  and  Lincoln  are  wide  as  the  poles  asunder.  The 
forces  that  they  summoned  to  their  aid  and  the  ideals  for  which 
they  fought  are  everlastingly  at  war.  From  the  very  beginning 
of  history  the  principle  of  force  and  the  principle  of  freedom 
have  struggled  for  mastery  over  the  minds  and  the  hearts  of  men. 
All  history  is  the  long  story  of  this  amazing  contest.  The  tide 
of  battle  has  ebbed  and  flowed,  now  in  Asia,  now  in  Africa,  now 
in  Europe,  now  in  America,  but  steadily  the  armies  of  freedom 
have  gained  ground.  Not  always  have  they  been  able  to  hold  it. 
Sometimes  they  have  been  driven  back  from  advanced  positions 
and  a  thousand  years  have  passed  before  a  new  forward  move- 
ment could  be  begun.  When  Abraham  Lincoln  said :  "This  nation 
can  not  exist  half  slave  and  half  free,"  he  was  but  applying  to 
the  United  States  the  principle,  equally  true,  "This  world  can 
not  exist  half  despotism  and  half  democracy."  A  world  that 
produces  a  Napoleon  and  a  Lincoln  must  be  at  war  until  Napoleon 
overcomes  Lincoln,  or  Lincoln  overthrows  Napoleon.  In  this  ever- 
lasting conflict  each  human  being  must  choose  his  captain  and 
fight  until  final  victory  is  won.  He  must  choose  Napoleon  and 
the  rule  of  force,  or  Lincoln  and  the  rule  of  freedom.  He  can  not 
serve  both  masters. 

Few  could  have  foreseen  after  Napoleon's  banishment  that  in 
just  a  hundred  years  his  challenge  would  be  heard  from  the  lips 
of  another  monarch.    Few  would  have  believed  that  after  Water- 


230  NATIONAL  REPUBLICAN  CLUB 


loo  there  would  come  a  Chateau-Thierry,  an  Argonne  Forest,  or 
a  Verdun.  Yet  they  did  come,  and  the  old  battle  was  never  more 
fiercely  fought  than  in  the  years  just  passed.  The  cause  of  free- 
dom, thank  God,  has  conquered  that  enemy,  and  now  turns  stern- 
faced  and  valiant  to  confront  other  and  subtler  foes. 

There  are  among  us  allies  of  Napoleon  who  do  not  wear  military 
uniforms  and  who  do  not  bear  arms.  With  stealthy  tread  and 
whispering  voices  they  go  about  spreading  the  doctrine  that  lib- 
erty is  dead;  that  men  are  bound  by  invisible  chains,  and  that  the 
law,  together  with  the  order  which  it  preserves  and  the  liberty 
which  it  ensures,  is  a  curse,  not  a  blessing.  It  is  insinuated  that 
the  law  is  a  manacle  put  upon  human  hands  by  those  who  would 
dominate  through  cunning  rather  than  by  conquest.  All  this  is 
to  pave  the  way  for  a  new  attack  by  the  disciples  of  force  and  of 
world  domination,  although  the  methods  are  new  and  the  declared 
purposes  quite  different.  Their  aim  is  an  autocracy — not  of  a 
monarch,  but  of  a  mob.  These  attacks  on  liberty  are  just  as  real 
and  perhaps  quite  as  dangerous  as  if  made  on  open  fields  of  battle 
with  cannon  and  machine  guns  and  poison  gas.  To  lead  us  to 
resist  and  to  repel  these  new  attacks,  we  summon  the  spirit  of 
Abraham  Lincoln.  He  knew,  few  men  ever  knew  so  well,  that 
law  has  been  made  by  free  men  to  protect  liberty  and  to  hold 
open  the  door  of  opportunity  by  the  doing  of  strict  justice  between 
man  and  man.  He  knew,  few  ever  knew  so  well,  that  human 
liberty  is  as  much  in  peril  from  the  many  as  from  the  one.  He 
knew,  few  ever  knew  so  well,  that  obedience  to  law,  respect  for 
law  when  law  is  built  upon  the  foundation  of  civil  liberty,  is 
the  cornerstone  of  any  form  of  civil  society  that  is  to  endure. 
Listen  to  his  own  words : 

Let  every  American,  every  lover  of  liberty,  every  well- 
wisher  to  his  posterity,  swear  by  the  blood  of  the  Revo- 


ADDRESS  OF  DR.   NICHOLAS  MURRAY  BUTLER  291 


lution  never  to  violate  in  the  least  particular  the  laws 
of  his  country,  and  never  to  tolerate  their  violation  by 
others.  .  .  .  Let  reverence  for  the  laws  be  breathed 
by  every  American  mother  to  the  lisping  babe  that  prat- 
tles in  her  lap;  let  it  be  taught  in  the  schools,  in  semi- 
naries and  in  colleges ;  let  it  be  written  in  primers,  spell- 
ing books,  and  in  almanacs;  let  it  be  preached  from  the 
pulpit,  proclaimed  in  legislative  halls  and  enforced  in 
courts  of  justice.  And,  in  short,  let  it  become  the  po- 
litical religion  of  the  Nation;  and  let  the  old  and  the 
young,  the  rich  and  the  poor,  the  grave  and  the  gay  of 
all  sexes  and  tongues  and  colors  and  conditions,  sacrifice 
unceasingly  upon  its  altars. 

Napoleon  was  a  great  law-giver;  but  for  him  law  was  to  estab- 
lish and  assure  order  upon  a  foundation  of  force.  For  Lincoln, 
law  was  to  establish  and  assure  order  upon  a  foundation  of  free- 
dom. The  nineteenth  century  was  the  scene  of  two  great  com- 
bats over  human  ideals.  The  twentieth  century  is  still  young  and 
has  its  history  to  make.  Wise  men  will  expect  the  old  combat  to 
be  constantly  renewed,  for  no  Utopia  is  in  sight.  We  must  take 
sides  with  Napoleon  or  with  Lincoln.  The  twentieth  century 
Napoleon  may  be  a  Lenine  or  a  Trotsky,  and  the  twentieth  cen- 
tury Lincoln  may  be  born  in  some  other  land  than  ours,  but  the 
driving  forces  will  be  the  same,  the  animating  ideals  will  be  the 
same.  As  the  nineteenth  century  so  in  the  twentieth,  the  world 
can  not  exist  half  despotism  and  half  democracy.  Either  Napoleon 
or  Lincoln  must  win.  Every  real  American  hearing  in  his  heart 
the  cry  of  threatened  liberty,  will  re-echo  the  old  war  song,  to 
which  the  Boys  in  Blue  so  cheerfully  marched  two  generations 
^go:  ''We  are  coming.  Father  Abraham,  a  hundred  million  strong." 


THE    THIRTY-FIFTH 
ANNUAL  LINCOLN   DINNER 

of  the 
NATIONAL  REPUBLICAN   CLUB 

At  the  Waldorf-Astoria 

FEBRUARY  12,  1921 


Address  of 


REV.   W.  WARREN   GILES,   D.D. 


REV.  WILLIAM  WAREEN  GILES 
Clergyman,  Author,  Lecturer. 


ADDRESS   OF 

REV.  W.  WARREN  GILES,  D.  D, 


Judge  Olcott,  honored  guests,  ladies  and  gentlemen:  I  am  go- 
ing to  present  to  you  the  greatest  co-ordination  of  intelligence, 
aflfection  and  will  to  which  America  ever  gave  birth — our  Mar- 
tyr President,  Abraham  Lincoln.  How  shall  we  account  for  him? 
Given  West  Point  and  you  can  explain  Grant;  given  Dartmouth 
and  you  can  explain  Webster;  given  Harvard  and  you  explain 
Seward;  given  Princeton  and  you  can  explain  Wilson.  But  given 
a  log  cabin  in  a  Kentucky  wilderness  with  no  Latin  Grammar 
within  a  hundred  miles,  how  are  you  going  to  explain  the  man 
who  overtops  them  all?  Listen  to  a  story,  the  bare  recital  of 
which  eclipses  every  classic  epic.  It  has  been  told  on  the  stage, 
in  the  films,  by  the  historians,  by  the  biographers,  by  the  essay- 
ists, by  the  orators,  by  the  dramatists,  by  the  clergy.  My  pre- 
sentation to-night  can  only  be  original  in  the  statement  of  my 
personal  impressions  and  personal  appraisal  of  the  mightiest  and 
most  lovable  figure  of  American  history. 

On  the  12th  of  February,  1809,  in  the  midst  of  a  terrific  bliz- 
zard, Abraham  Lincoln  was  born  in  a  log  cabin  on  Rock  Creek 
Farm,  Kentucky.  At  the  hour  of  his  birth,  his  father  was  absent 
in  Elizabethtown  buying  supplies,  and  being  snow-bound  by  the 
blizzard,  did  not  arrive  home  until  a  day  after  the  event,  when 
he  found  the  neighbors  looking  after  Mrs.  Lincoln,  the  new  born 


NATIONAL  REPUBLICAN   CLUB 


babe,  and  their  little  daughter  Sarah.  While  his  mother  was 
going  down  into  the  valley  of  the  shadow  to  bring  forth  the  babe 
that  was  to  become  immortal,  she  was  alone  save  for  her  six- 
year-old  daughter  Sarah;  and  the  little  cabin  was  cold,  dark  and 
without  food.  Had  it  not  been  for  Isom  Enlow,  a  neighbor  seek- 
ing shelter  at  the  Lincoln  cabin  from  the  storm,  Thomas  Lincoln 
might  have  come  home  to  find  a  candidate  for  the  cemetery  in- 
stead of  the  White  House.  While  waiting  for  the  storm  to  sub- 
side, Enlow  had  sustained  the  young  mother,  little  Sarah,  and 
the  baby,  by  feeding  them  broth  made  of  hot  water  and  wild 
turkey  grease,  the  grease  being  used  by  Kentucky  riflemen  to 
lubricate  their  firearms.  Not  very  appetizing  for  the  poor  mother  I 
but  remember  she  was  freezing.  Enlow  little  realized  the  worth 
of  the  babe  he  snatched  from  death.  Such  was  his  birth,  and  it 
reminds  you  not  a  litle  of  one  two  thousand  years  before. 

After  a  happy  childhood  with  his  mother,  Lincoln  removed 
with  his  parents  to  Pigeon  Creek  in  southern  Indiana.  Here 
another  cabin  was  built.  And  here,  a  few  months  later,  Lincoln, 
with  his  own  childish  hands,  helped  fashion  the  coffin,  dig  the 
grave  and  prepare  for  burial  the  body  of  his  beloved  mother.  It 
hurt  him  deeply.  He  could  not  understand  why  his  "angel 
mother,"  as  he  called  her,  could  not  have  been  spared.  Think 
of  it !  no  clergyman  came  until  the  next  Spring  when  the  belated 
funeral  was  held. 

During  his  years  in  Indiana  he  grew  strong.  He  was  the  ath- 
letic champion  of  the  neighborhood  and  had  read  every  book 
known  to  be  within  a  radius  of  fifty  miles.  His  sister  Sarah 
breathed  her  last  in  the  Indiana  cabin  shortly  after  the  passing 
of  his  mother.  In  1828,  when  Lincoln  was  nineteen,  his  rest- 
less father  "trekked"  for  Illinois  where  they  arrived  in  August 
and,  in  that  Fall,  built  a  cabin  in  Coles  County.    Abraham  broke 


ADDRESS  OF  REV.  W.  WARREN  GILES,  D.D.  297 

ground  for  a  crop  the  next  Spring  and  in  the  Autumn  of  that 
year,  1829,  Thomas  Lincoln  gave  the  big  boy  his  liberty.  With 
his  axe  and  a  few  clothes  tied  in  a  bundle,  Abraham  set  out  to 
conquer  the  world. 

He  struck  out  West  along  an  old  Indian  trail,  and  spent  the 
Winter  splitting  rails  in  the  bottoms  of  the  Sangamon  river. 
Twenty-five  years  later,  when  he  became  a  celebrity,  two  of 
those  rails  were  carried  in  a  political  procession.  At  this  juncture 
he  conceived  the  idea  of  building  a  flat  boat  and  taking  a  cargo 
of  farm  products  to  New  Orleans.  He  found  a  backer,  built  the 
boat,  and  was  then  and  there  elected  to  his  first  office — captain 
of  a  flat  boat.  While  drifting  down  the  Sangamon  to  the  Illinois, 
the  boat  stranded  on  the  milldam  at  the  little  town  of  New  Salem. 
It  was  here  Lincoln  got  his  first  glimpse  of  Anne  Rutledge.  One 
look  into  her  lovely  eyes  and  the  Emancipator  of  the  slaves  be- 
came the  slave  of  the  greatest  tyrant  on  earth,  Cupid.  Then  he 
struck  the  Mississippi  and  for  weeks,  floating  with  the  current, 
thought  and  thought  and  thought. 

At  New  Orleans  he  sold  his  cargo  and  boat  to  good  advantage 
and,  while  preparing  to  start  home,  visited  the  old  slave  market. 
There  he  saw  men  stripped,  whipped,  chained,  abused,  sold,  out- 
raged. It  filled  him  with  fury.  He  remarked  to  his  cousin, 
John  Hanks,  who  accompanied  him:  "If  I  ever  get  a  chance  to 
hit  that  thing  I  will  hit  it  hard."  Thirty-two  years  later  he 
signed  his  name  to  a  paper  freeing  every  slave  in  America.  He 
"hit  it  hard." 

Lincoln  and  Hanks  worked  their  passage  back  to  St.  Louis 
by  "firing"  on  a  steamboat,  and  walked  thence  to  New  Salem, 
where  Lincoln  got  a  job  as  a  millhand  at  the  Rutledge  mill, 
owned  by  Anne  Rutledge's  father.  You  can  see  whom  he  was 
thinking  about  those  moonlight  nights  when  he  was  floating 


298  NATIONAL   REPUBLICAN   CLTJB 

down  the  Mississippi.  Later  he  accepted  a  clerkship  in  the  store 
of  M.  T.  Offut.  Here,  because  of  his  studious  habits,  he  became 
the  butt  of  the  "Clary  Grove  Gang,"  a  crowd  of  loafers  led  by 
the  athletic  champion,  Jack  Armstrong.  Their  annoyance  of 
Lincoln  culminated  in  a  battle  royal  in  which  the  raw-boned 
son  of  Kentucky  not  only  gave  Armstrong  the  beating  of  his 
life,  but  stood  off  his  whole  crew. 

Meantime  Lincoln  had  become  a  boarder  at  the  Rutledge  home 
and  there  constantly  met  the  lovely  Anne,  who  was  engaged  to 
John  MacNeill,  the  catch  of  the  community.  One  day  the  "catch 
of  the  community"  explained  to  Anne  that  his  real  name  was 
not  MacNeill,  and  that  he  was  going  to  New  York  to  see  his 
parents  and  find  out  what  it  might  be.  He  did;  and,  greatly  to 
her  advantage,  Anne  never  heard  of  him  again.  It  was  then  that 
this  sweet  soul  turned  to  the  noble  and  sympathetic  Lincoln. 
Immediately  there  developed  one  of  the  sweetest  love-idylls  in 
American  history.  Lincoln  gave  his  heart  to  this  girl,  and  under 
the  old  oak  at  Salem  (still  standing),  they  pledged  their  lives 
to  one  another.  For  a  while  all  was  as  lovely  as  a  moonlit  sea, 
then  the  little  girl,  stricken  with  a  mysterious  fever,  began  to 
cough  and  fade,  and  fade  and  cough,  until  one  day  she  said: 
"Abe,  lift  me  in  your  arms  and  carry  me  to  the  window,  where 
I  can  see  the  sun  set."  He  did;  a  little  later  the  sun  set,  and  the 
old,  old  fashioned  death  came  into  the  room  and  the  soul  of  the 
only  woman  that  the  greatest  of  the  Americans  ever  loved,  went 
home  and  left  him  alone.    He  never  got  over  it. 

At  this  juncture  the  Black  Hawk  war  broke  out.  He  went; 
was  glad  to  go.  When  he  returned  he  found  that  his  partner 
in  the  store  had  drunk  up  all  the  stock  and  left  him  with  a  debt 
of  $1,100.    He  agonized  to  pay  that  debt,  but  paid  every  cent  of 


ADDRESS  OP  REV.  W.  WARREN  GILES,  D.D.  299 

it.  Later  he  said:  "That  debt  was  the  greatest  obstacle  in  my 
life." 

In  1834  he  was  elected  to  the  State  Legislature.  This  took 
him  to  Springfield.  Here  he  met  the  celebrities  of  the  State  in- 
cluding Stephen  A.  Douglas.  In  1836,  removing  to  Springfield, 
he  undertook  the  study  of  the  law.  When  he  arrived,  because 
he  had  kept  such  perfect  faith  with  his  creditors,  he  had  only 
seventeen  dollars  with  which  to  buy  bedding  for  his  room.  It 
was  then  he  was  helped  by  old  Joshua  Speed,  who  shared  with 
him  his  room  and  bed.  Little  did  Speed  realize  that  he  was 
sleeping  beside  the  man  who  was  to  be  the  country's  greatest 
President  and  saviour.  It  is  delightful  to  recall  that  Speed  lived 
to  see  him  in  the  White  House  and  visit  him  there.  While  at 
Springfield  he  developed  his  gift  for  public  speaking  and  was 
acclaimed  in  debate  and  the  councils  of  the  State.  In  1847  he 
was  elected  to  the  National  House  of  Representatives.  In  1855 
he  became  a  candidate  for  the  United  States  Senate.  Fearing 
defeat,  he  threw  his  strength  to  a  good  friend  named  Lyman 
Trumbull. 

In  1854,  by  the  most  iniquitous  kind  of  trickery,  the  Missouri 
Compromise  was  repealed.  This  meant  the  extension  of  slavery 
into  new  territories  about  joining  the  Union.  Lincoln  saw  that 
the  Constitution  would  soon  become  "a  scrap  of  paper"  if  the 
South  triumphed.  Stephen  A.  Douglas,  who  was  the  United  States 
Senator  from  Illinois,  favored  the  South.  Lincoln,  to  put  his  case 
before  the  people,  challenged  Douglas  to  a  joint  debate.  Douglas 
accepted.  From  August  to  October  these  two  giants  staged  the 
most  spectacular  political  battle  ever  fought.  In  seven  different 
cities  they  addressed  thousands.  Do  not  forget  that  Douglas, 
until  he  met  Lincoln,  was  by  all  odds  the  greatest  debater  and 
the  most  accomplished  leader  in  the  country.    He  no  more  doubted 


300  NATIONAL   REPUBLICAN   CLUB 

his  ability  to  humiliate  Lincoln  than  he  doubted  his  leadership 
in  the  Senate.  To  his  astonishment  he  found  that  he  had  locked 
horns  with  a  Colossus  in  whose  grip  he  was  as  helpless  as  a  child. 
Lincoln  left  him  in  the  dust  of  defeat.  These  seven  speeches 
made  Lincoln.  In  1860  the  Republican  Party  demanded  his 
nomination  for  the  Presidency.  Douglas  was  the  Democratic 
nominee.  Lincoln,  the  Samson  of  the  backwoods,  defeated  Doug- 
las, the  Beau  Brummel  of  the  drawing  room.  It  broke  Douglas' 
heart. 

Brother  men,  I  have  said  that,  given  West  Point,  you  can  ex- 
plain Grant.  Given  Dartmouth,  you  can  explain  Webster.  Given 
Harvard,  you  can  explain  Seward.  Given  Princeton,  you  can  ex- 
plain Wilson.  But  given  nothing  but  a  cabin  in  a  Kentucky 
wilderness,  or  a  country  store  in  an  Indiana  village,  how  are 
you  going  to  explain  Lincoln,  the  man  who  wrote  finer  English 
than  Gladstone,  framed  more  convincing  arguments  than  Doug- 
las, enunciated  more  profound  policies  than  Seward?  You  sim- 
ply cannot.  To  this  hour  he  remains  the  most  unfathomable 
mystery  of  American  history. 

In  the  meantime  the  clouds  were  gathering.  Secession  was 
threatened;  and  when  Lincoln  was  elected  President  over  Doug- 
las, the  South,  hesitating  no  longer,  began  seizing  all  the  Fed- 
eral property  within  its  area.  With  an  untried  rail  splitter  in 
the  White  House,  they  never  had  a  doubt  of  the  issue.  Lincoln's 
job  began  the  moment  he  exchanged  his  linen  duster  for  official 
broadcloth,  and  never  ceased  until  shot  to  death  five  years  later. 

I  need  not  tell  you  that  he  lived  in  hell.  For  him  as  for 
Andrew  Jackson,  the  White  House  was  the  abode  of  torment.  In 
the  first  place,  the  three  leaders  of  his  Cabinet,  Seward,  Stanton 
and  Chase,  secretly  despised  him,  and  cordially  hated  him.  Se- 
ward was  one  of  the  most  conceited  prigs  of  the  period.    Lincoln 


ADDRESS  OF  REV.  W.  WARREN  GILES,  D.D.  301 

had  defeated  him  in  the  nominating  convention  and  made  him 
Secretary  of  State  to  salve  his  feelings.  It  was  a  huge  mistake. 
Seward,  like  all  small  men,  showed  his  appreciation  by  patroniz- 
ing Lincoln,  apologizing  for  him,  tolerating  him,  laughing  at  him 
rather  than  with  him.  Stanton,  the  Secretary  of  War,  looked 
at  Lincoln,  asked  ''who  this  lanky  gawk  might  be,"  and  proceeded 
to  snub  him.  The  insults  that  Lincoln  endured  from  Stanton 
during  the  next  five  years  would  have  stirred  resentment  in 
hell.  He  was  a  big,  rough,  conceited  know-it-all,  with  a  bushel 
of  coarse  brains,  but  no  culture.  He  specialized  in  annoying  Lin- 
coln. The  third  man  who  distressed  Lincoln  was  Chase.  Chase 
was  as  cold  as  ice,  and  as  glinty  as  broken  glass.  There  was  no 
more  heart  in  Chase  than  in  a  piece  of  railroad  iron.  He  envied 
and  detested  Lincoln,  so  much  so,  that  with  rare  double  dealing 
he  inspired  a  fault-finding  committee,  when  things  were  at  their 
darkest,  to  wait  upon  Lincoln  and  take  him  to  task.  I  do  not 
recall  who  served  on  that  committee,  but  I  know  that  Horace 
Greeley  and  Henry  Ward  Beecher  were  among  those  who  thought 
the  country  "needed  a  change."  It  did — from  Seward,  Stanton 
and  Chase.  Believe  me,  gentlemen,  not  one  of  these  three  ever 
initiated,  proposed  or  conceived  one  single  original  policy  for  the 
salvation  of  this  Union  between  '61  and  '65.  And  if  any  one  of 
them  had  been  in  Lincoln's  chair,  the  North  would  have  been  de- 
feated as  decisively  as  it  ultimately  triumphed. 

Talk  about  statesmen!  These  men  weren't  even  good  clerks. 
When  Lincoln  was  not  cuddling  Seward  to  keep  him  at  his  job, 
he  was  smoothing  down  Stanton  to  conciliate  his  bad  humor,  or 
drinking  tea  with  Chase  to  warm  the  coccles  of  his  icy  heart. 
Think  of  it !  Men  whom  Theodore  Roosevelt  would  have  pitched 
out,  men  whom  Woodrow  Wilson  would  have  dismissed  with  a 
sneer,  Lincoln  in  the  goodness   of  his   heart   tolerated   for  five 


302  NATIONAL   REPUBLICAN   CLUB 

years.  Tolerated  while  the  sadness,  the  terror,  the  agony  of  Bull 
Bun,  Ball's  Bluff,  Fredericksburg,  Antietam,  Chancellorsville  and 
Gettysburg  were  crushing  his  very  soul.  Imagine  bearing  all 
that,  with  not  a  man  in  your  Cabinet  upon  whom  you  could  lean ! 
It  was  hell. 

Brother  men,  no  man  in  history  ever  carried  a  heavier  burden 
than  Abraham  Lincoln  during  the  first  two  years  of  the  war. 
It  was  a  story  of  daily  defeat.  At  night  he  walked  the  floors  of 
the  White  House  in  agony.  During  the  day  he  walked  the  hos- 
pitals of  Washington  in  tears.  His  greatest  comfort  seemed  to 
be  realized  in  visting  the  poor  little  lads  brought  in  wounded 
from  the  battlefields  of  Virginia.  He  would  stroke  their  heads, 
write  letters  to  their  mothers,  and  bid  them  an  affectionate  good- 
bye. Surrounded  by  conspirators,  the  victim  of  constant  in- 
trigues, the  butt  of  the  idle  jesters  of  his  Cabinet,  truly,  like 
Jesus  of  Nazareth,  he  trod  his  winepress  alone.  And  yet  he 
was  not  alone.  Because  he  was  a  man  of  destiny,  he  was  a  man 
of  God.  For  I  tell  you  that  the  Abraham,  who  left  Chaldea  and 
journeyed  to  Canaan,  was  never  more  completely  the  child  of 
the  Eternal  than  the  Abraham,  who,  under  far  humbler  condi- 
tions, left  the  Kentucky  wilderness  and  journeyed  to  the  White 
House. 

His  greatest  anxiety  came  with  the  battle  of  Gettysburg.  Lee 
had  invaded  Pennsylvania  to  avail  himself  of  his  last  chance. 
For  three  days  the  blue  and  the  gray  struggled  with  desperation. 
Finally  with  the  charge  of  Pickett's  division,  Lee  threw  in  his 
best  and  last  battalions.  The  Union  line  faltered  and  retreated 
to  a  stone  wall  at  Cemetery  Hill.  Here  they  rallied  and,  with  a 
fire  that  no  mortal  man  could  endure,  they  held  the  flower  of  Lee's 
army  and  drove  it  back  in  retreat.  The  Union  was  saved.  The 
white-faced  man  of  the  White  House  fell  on  his  knees  and  thanked 


ADDRESS  OF  REV.  W.  WARREN  GILES,  D.D.  303 

God  in  tears.  Strangely  enough,  at  this  juncture,  his  best  be- 
loved son  was  taken  from  him.  The  night  that  child  died,  Lincoln 
divided  his  time  between  a  ball  given  at  the  White  House,  to 
keep  up  the  spirits  of  the  North,  and  that  boy's  bedside  in  the 
Presidential  suite.     Can  you  imagine  a  greater  burden? 

After  Gettysburg  the  scenes  of  the  war  shifted  rapidly  and 
bloodily.  The  Wilderness,  Lookout  Mountain,  Missionary  Eidge, 
Cold  Harbor,  Petersburg,  Five  Forks,  and  then  the  surrender  of 
Lee  at  Appomattox!  When  the  news  of  Lee's  surrender  reached 
the  White  House  the  Cabinet  was  in  session.  Lincoln  read  the 
dispatch  to  his  associates  and  then  with  a  voice  quivering  with 
gratitude  said:  "Gentlemen,  let  us  return  thanks  to  Almighty 
God."    They  knelt  then  and  there  and  did  it. 

Peace  at  last!  The  nation's  greatest  President  has  seen  of  the 
travail  of  his  soul  and  is  satisfied.  Now  he  will  rebuild  the  na- 
tion. But,  alas,  for  human  hopes!  Before  he  can  square  himself 
for  his  greatest  task,  the  most  cowardly  of  assassins  fired  the  shot 
that  stole  away  the  life  of  the  greatest  of  the  Americans.  It  was 
a  crime  without  sense  or  sentiment.  It  hurt  the  South  as  much 
as  it  horrified  the  North.  In  1886  I  lived  in  the  house  with  and 
knew  the  brother  of  John  Wilkes  Booth,  the  assassin.  May  I 
say  that  if  I  have  ever  known  an  embittered  soul,  it  was  his. 
He  told  me,  not  once  but  many  times,  that  the  most  distinguished 
member  of  his  family  was  not  Edwin,  the  actor,  but  John  Wilkes, 
the  murderer.  I  shall  never  lose  the  impression  of  horror.  Thus 
ended  one  of  the  strangest  and  most  unaccountable  lives  in  hu- 
man history. 

Brother  men,  do  yon  realize  that  though  Abraham  Lincoln 
never  studied  philosophy,  he  was  one  of  the  most  highly  trained 
thinkers  of  the  nineteenth  century?  Do  you  realize  that  though 
he  never  studied  literature,  he  has  produced,  next  to  Shakes- 


304  NATIONAL   REPUBLICAN   CLUB 

peare,  the  finest  specimens  of  English  in  the  English  language? 
At  this  honr,  next  to  the  twenty-third  psalm,  the  ten  command- 
ments, the  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  and  the  Lord's  Prayer,  there 
are  no  words  more  completely  in  the  minds  and  mouths  of  the 
American  people  than  his  speech  at  Gettysburg,  a  speech  in- 
scribed on  the  walls  of  the  college  from  which  Gladstone  gradu- 
ated as  the  finest  utterance  of  our  mother  tongue.  How  will  you 
account  for  his  marvelous  facility  in  the  use  of  words? 

There  is  but  one  answer.  As  a  man  of  destiny  he  was  a  man 
of  God.  In  his  great  soul  God  lives.  Through  his  melancholy  lips 
God  spoke.  With  his  strong  honest  hands  God  wrought.  If  an 
honest  man  is  the  noblest  work  of  God,  Abraham  Lincoln  must 
rank  among  His  great  creations.  There  is  not  a  stain  upon  him; 
not  one.  No  woman  made  a  fool  of  him.  No  designing  politician 
made  a  dupe  of  him.  No  Daugherty,  Doheny  or  Sinclair  ever 
blinded  his  judicial  eyes  with  a  gift.  He  came  to  the  people 
without  a  cent,  and  he  died  as  poor  as  he  came.  He  was  buried 
from  the  house  of  the  nation,  in  a  tomb  built  by  the  nation,  at 
the  nation's  expense.  As  a  people  we  thank  God  that  he  went  to 
his  grave  without  spot  or  wrinkle.  No  most  heartless  investi- 
gator, prying  into  his  past,  can  say,  "He  was  all  right,  but " 

"He  would  have  been  better  if "     There  are  no  disjunctive 

"buts"  or  hypothetical  "ifs"  to  be  lamented  in  the  case  of  Abra- 
ham Lincoln.  His  life  was  as  clean  and  straight  as  a  marble 
shaft. 

Because  God  abundantly  enriched  him  with  His  wisdom,  Lin- 
coln was  able  to  read  men  as  easily  as  you  read  your  evening 
paper.  The  patronizing  Seward,  the  coarse,  cavalier  Stanton, 
the  double-faced  Chase  never  deceived  him.  He  knew  them  as 
well  as  he  knew  the  poor  little  drummer  boy,  whom  he  held  in 
his  arms  while  dying.    He  understood  them  as  thoroughly  as  he 


ADDRESS  OF  REV.  W.  WARREN  GILES,  D.D.  305 

did  the  over-tired  sentinel  who  was  sentenced  to  death  for  being 
asleep  on  post,  because  he  had  marched  twenty-three  hours,  tak- 
ing another  man's  place.  He  knew  them  as  well  as  he  knew  the 
poor  blacks  to  whom  he  brought  the  one  thing  a  white  man  will 
never  surrender — FREEDOM.  He  knew  all  men  and  loved  them 
impartially.  Though  he  made  war  on  the  South,  there  is  no  name 
next  to  Robert  E.  Lee's  more  revered  in  the  South  to-day  than 
Abraham  Lincoln's. 

And  because  he  loved  all  men,  next  to  Paul  of  Tarsus,  he  has 
brought  a  greater  blessing  to  more  men  than  any  other  man  of 
history.  His  Emancipation  Proclamation,  signed  in  opposition  to 
the  wishes  of  his  Cabinet,  stands  at  this  hour  the  greatest  single 
act  in  the  history  of  humanity  since  the  landing  of  Columbus. 
While  the  colored  race  survive  and  have  minds  to  think  and 
hearts  to  feel,  they  will  acclaim  him  as,  next  to  Christ,  their 
greatest  benefactor. 

His  capacity  for  work  was  enormous.  He  had  assistants  but 
no  advisers.  He  had  clerks  but  no  confidants.  He  listened  to 
everybody  patiently  and  did  what  he  thought  independently. 
He  had  a  job  which  he  could  no  more  delegate  than  you  can  dele- 
gate the  act  of  breathing.  God  called  him  to  save  this  nation, 
and  God  saw  to  it  that  it  was  saved.  A  man  of  prayer,  his  belief 
in  God  was  absolute.  On  his  knees  he  was  a  child;  but  on  his 
feet,  addressing  the  nation,  a  giant.  Could  any  but  an  inspired 
believer  touch  men's  hearts  as  he  did.  You  talk  about  eloquence ! 
I  tell  you  that  at  this  hour,  there  is  no  man  in  public  life  even 
comparable  to  him.  Not  one!  And  there  is  no  utterance  of  the 
last   four   administrations   comparable   to   his   second   inaugural. 

Speaking  of  the  dreadful  retributions  of  war,  he  said:  ''Woe 
unto  the  world  because  of  offences;  for  it  must  needs  be  that  of- 
fences will  come,  but  woe  to  that  man  by  whom  the  offence 


306  NATIONAL   EEPUBLICAN   CLUB 

Cometh.  If  we  shall  suppose  that  American  slavery  is  one  of 
those  offences  which,  in  the  province  of  God,  must  needs  come, 
but  which,  having  continued  through  His  appointed  time,  He 
now  wills  to  remove,  and  that  He  gives  to  both  North  and  South 
this  terrible  war  as  the  woe  due  to  those  by  whom  the  offence 
came,  shall  we  discern  therein  any  departure  from  those  divine 
attributes  which  the  believers  in  a  living  God  always  ascribe  to 
HIM?  Fondly  do  we  hope,  earnestly  do  we  pray,  that  this  mighty 
scourge  of  war  may  speedily  pass  away.  Yet,  if  God  wills  that 
it  continue  until  all  the  wealth  piled  by  the  bondsman's  two  hun- 
dred and  fifty  years  of  unrequited  toil  shall  be  sunk,  and  until 
every  drop  of  blood  drawn  with  the  lash,  shall  be  paid  with 
another  drawn  by  the  sword,  as  was  said  three  thousand  years 
ago,  so  still  it  must  be  said,  'The  Judgments  of  the  Lord  are  true 
and  righteous  altogether.' " 

That  speech  was  made  more  than  half  a  century  ago,  and  from 
that  day  to  this  nothing  has  ever  touched  it  in  spiritual  power. 
His  great  soul  took  its  flight  just  thirty-five  days  later.  It  was 
his  last  utterance  and  was  worthy  of  the  man  who  now  "belongs 
to  the  ages."  I  remember  his  funeral.  It  is  the  first  recollection 
of  my  life.  I  was  five  years  of  age  at  the  time.  On  my  aunt's 
balcony  in  Union  Square,  I  saw  the  marching  soldiers  who  had 
just  returned  from  the  war.  I  heard  the  muffled  drums  as  they 
beat  time  for  the  tramping  hosts ;  and  then  I  saw  the  funeral  car 
bearing  his  casket.  Though  fifty-six  years  have  passed,  I  see  it 
to-night  as  clearly  as  I  see  you.  It  made  an  impression  which  I 
shall  never  lose. 

To-night,  Mr.  President,  on  behalf  of  the  Republican  Club  as 
well  as  my  own,  I  want  to  place  on  his  dear  brow  one  more  crown, 
the  crown  of  him  who  died  that  we  might  live  in  the  possession 


ADDRESS  OF  REV.    ^.  WARREN  GILES,  D.D.  307 

of  those  liberties  without  which  we  must  live  in  vain.  "Greater 
love  hath  no  man  than  this  that  a  man  lay  down  his  life  for  his 
friend."    Thank  God,  he  did  it.     He  did  it. 

Good  night,  ladies  and  gentlemen,  I  thank  you  heartily  for 
your  kindly  attention. 


THE    THIRTY-SIXTH 

ANNUAL   LINCOLN   DINNER 

of  the 

NATIONAL  REPUBLICAN   CLUB 

At  the  Waldorf-Astoria 

FEBRUARY  12,  1922 


Addresses  of 


HON.  JOB  E.  HEDGES 


CHARLES  REYNOLDS  BROWN 


JOB  E.   HEDGES 

Born  in  Elizabeth,  N.  J.,  1862.  His  father  died  in 
battle.  Graduate  of  Princeton,  1884,  and  Columbia 
Law  School,  1886.  LL.D.  from  St.  Lawrence  University 
and  University  of  Pittsburgh.  For  years  a  famous 
after-dinner  speaker.  Endowed  with  wit  and  philo- 
sophical powers.  Author  of  "Common  Sense  in  Poli- 
tics." 


ADDRESS   OF 


HON.  JOB  E.  HEDGES 


Mr.  Toastmaster  and  ladies  and  gentlemen:  There  is  one  thing 
made  absolutely  clear  to  me  to-night,  and  that  is  that  the  provi- 
dential gift  of  humor  that  Lincoln  had  has  not  been  transmitted. 
At  least,  not  so  you'd  notice  it.  For  a  lecture  course,  I  think  the 
Republican  Club  of  the  City  of  New  York  is  now  in  the  front 
rank.  If  you  believe  in  centralization,  you  have  had  it.  If  you 
believe  in  States'  rights,  you  have  had  it.  If  you  believe  in  the 
derelicts  of  Westchester  County,  you  have  had  them.  It  has  been 
the  ambition  of  my  young  life  to  speak  at  a  banquet  of  the  Re- 
publican Club  on  the  anniversary  of  Lincoln's  birthday,  and  I  am 
going  to  have  a  very  narrow  escape.  The  pathetic  interest  with 
which  men  who  preceded  the  last  speaker  look  around  and  inti- 
mate that  they  are  going  to  hurry  is  one  of  those  second-story 
propositions  that  you  read  about  but  don't  see.  I  don't  know 
anything  about  this  Interstate  Commerce  Act.  I  never  traveled 
on  a  pass,  and  I  couldn't  get  far  enough  with  any  surplus  of  my 
own  to  have  an  interstate  experience.  I  am  satisfied,  however, 
that  if  Abraham  Lincoln,  in  the  dark  days  of  the  Rebellion,  had 
thought  he  was  chargeable  with  as  many  things  as  he  has  been 
made  chargeable  with,  or  that  he  had  accomplished  as  many 
things  as  have  been  credited  to  him,  he  would  have  been  so 
nervous  that  his  sense  of  humor  would  not  have  saved  him  any 


312  NATIONAL   REPUBLICAN   CLUB 

more  than  it  has  saved  this  evening.  And  I  am  told  on  very  high 
authority  that  it  is  dangerous  in  these  days  to  be  other  than 
tragic.  You  have  just  got  to  be  serious  or  people  won't  under- 
stand you.  The  press  have  gone,  some  of  the  audience  have  gone, 
some  are  going,  and  I  don't  care.  I  don't  want  mine  printed. 
Those  who  have  left  went  because  they  knew  it  would  be  all  right ; 
those  who  have  tarried  have  remained  because  they  couldn't  leave. 
I  don't  know  why.  There  are  so  many  topics  in  the  public  mind 
nowadays  that  it  is  difficult  to  find  a  field  into  which  a  man  can 
jump  and  have  it  all  to  himself.  I  don't  know  whether  it  is  a 
Federal  proposition  or  not,  but  even  our  domestic  relations  are 
regulated.  We  can't  marry  nowadays  until  we  try  it,  and  after 
we  are  married  the  Federal  government  steps  in  and  tells  us  what 
we  must  do.  It  isn't  a  question  of  States'  rights;  it  is  a  question 
of  the  rights  of  the  human  home.  A  man  has  a  right  to  live. 
And  now  they  are  circumnavigating  the  air,  I  suppose  so  that 
everything  else  will  look  so  small  to  them,  so  they  can  see  it  all. 
I  intended  to  speak  to-night  on  the  subject,  if  I  had  had  the  time, 
of  an  Empire  State,  and  yet  I  noticed  that  the  Toastmaster  said 
that  the  orator  of  the  evening  was  not  to  be  here,  and  that 
thirty  years  ago,  when  I  was  a  child  in  arms,  he  went  over  to 
Philadelphia  and  found  Beck.  The  Republican  Party  found  him 
about  five  years  ago,  and  I  am  glad  we  did.  A  recent  convert  is 
always  desired.  But  it  struck  me,  not  so  much  from  my  experi- 
ence here  to-night,  which  has  been  pleasant,  though  painful,  that 
among  the  ills  of  this  Republic — and  you  have  to  have  somebody 
ill  before  you  can  cure  him — that  what  we  are  suffering  from  is 
an  over-production  of  great  men,  who  know  all  things  about  all 
topics,  and  feel  sorry  for  the  rest  of  us,  and  that  there  is  an 
awful  dearth  of  men  who  aren't  certain  about  anything,  but  are 
trying  within  the  limits  of  their  capacity  to  find  out  what  is  the 


ADDRESS  OF  HON.  JOB  E.  HEDGES  313 

real  thing  about  anything.  I  am  one  of  that  class,  possibly 
prominent  by  the  smallness  of  the  class.  It  doesn't  make  an 
awful  sight  of  difference  how  many  divisions  there  are  among 
people,  provided  there  are  more  than  two,  yourself  and  the  rest 
— then  it  is  dangerous.  I  don't  know  of  any  country  that  gets 
saved  as  often  as  this  does,  during  the  war,  during  campaigns, 
during  banquets — any  old  time  you  can  find  some  one  to  save 
this  country  if  you  will  give  him  time  enough.  I  could  save  it 
myself  if  I  had  more  than  seven  minutes,  but  I  haven't.  Never- 
theless, I  think  there  are  a  lot  of  things  we  can  do.  I  don't 
think  that  Washington  can  make  a  non-resident  change  his  en- 
tire nature.  I  think  that  New  York  is  an  Empire  State ;  I  looked 
that  up,  and  it  isn't  your  fault  that  you  don't  get  the  result  of 
my  researches.  I  know  what  the  aggregate  wealth  of  New  York 
State  is;  I  know  the  per  centum  of  her  increase  in  population;  I 
know  the  amount  of  other  people's  bank  deposits  in  the  State  of 
New  York;  I  know  the  per  capita  wealth  of  the  State  of  New 
York,  and  it  is  an  Empire  State  all  right. 

I  have  heard  of  this  Philadlephia  place,  too,  but  I  didn't  dare 
go  there  until  I  had  arrived  at  the  state  of  manhood — I  wouldn't 
take  a  chance — and  yet  it  seems  to  me  that  in  all  this  learning 
we  have  had,  and  I  am  for  it,  that  there  is  one  thing  that  we 
have  overlooked,  and  that  is  the  undesirability  of  law  excess.  I 
never  knew  of  a  statute.  State  or  Federal,  that  could  reduce  a 
thirst;  I  never  knew  of  a  statute.  State  or  Federal,  that  could 
prevent  a  man  wanting  something  he  didn't  have;  I  never  knew 
a  law  that  could  make  a  man  spend  money  wisely  according  to 
somebody  else's  notion;  I  never  knew  of  a  law  that  could  incul- 
cate a  moral  proposition  into  a  human  heart,  and  there  never 
will  be  one  while  we  are  here,  and  if  the  signers  of  the  Declara- 
tion of  Independence  had  thought  that  their  successors  in  Ameri- 


314  NATIONAL   REPUBLICAN   CLTJB 

can  citizenship  looked  to  law  to  teach  a  man  his  duty  toward  his 
God  and  his  fellow-man,  they  would  have  adjourned  and  given 
up,  and  we  wouldn't  have  had  a  Constitution.  It  wouldn't  have 
been  a  terrible  thing  if  we  hadn't  had;  we  would  have  been  here 
just  the  same.  That  Constitution  has  stood  for  a  good  many 
things.  It  has  just  occurred  to  me,  however,  and  notwithstand- 
ing these  vociferous  demands  that  I  hear  for  me  to  continue, 
that  the  Empire  State  that  we  want  to  look  for  as  American 
citizens  is  in  the  human  heart,  and  if  it  isn't  there  it  needn't 
be  in  the  laws.  And  organization,  and  concentration  and  State 
rights,  or  Federal  interference  cannot  and  never  will  make  an 
American  citizen.  If  he  isn't  one  by  instinct,  he  never  will  be 
except  by  the  example  of  others — and  who  are  the  others? 
That's  all.  Who  are  responsible  for  it?  What  is  the  object  of 
saying  that  you  shan't  issue  stock  against  property  that  don't 
exist,  if  men  will  sign  a  certificate  and  say  it  does  exist?  That's 
all.  We  believe  men  in  this  country.  Except  in  the  single  in- 
stance of  the  worship  of  a  Creator  by  a  man  according  to  his  re- 
ligious belief,  no  man  in  this  country  can  divorce  himself  of  re- 
sponsibility to  everybody  else.  There  is  only  one  test  that  I 
know  of,  and  that  is  if  you  have  a  right,  are  you  exercising  it 
rightly?  If  you  have  a  public  privilege,  are  you  exercising  it 
in  the  best  interest  of  the  public  regardless  of  whether  the  Dis- 
trict Attorney  is  County  or  Federal?  If  you  have  been  given 
something  that  enables  you  to  profit  and  you  are  entitled  to 
profit,  have  you  a  right  to  profit  at  the  expense  of  everybody 
because  you  think  there  is  no  evidence  against  you?  A  thing 
is  right  or  wrong,  and  the  man  who  exercises  a  public  privilege 
not  in  the  interest  of  the  public  has  received  something  that  he 
isn't  entitled  to  have,  and  whether  you  call  it  grand  larceny,  or 
a  trust,  or  a  concentration  of  aggregate  wealth,  it  is  just  as  bad. 


ADDRESS  OF  HON.  JOB  E.  HEDGES  315 

I  don't  know  of  any  way  for  people  to  change  other  people  ex- 
cept by  changing  themselves  first.  It  don't  make  any  difference 
to  me  how  bad  the  other  man  is;  I  have  a  hard  enough  time  with 
myself,  and  it  takes  me  just  about  twenty-four  hours  a  day  to 
keep  within  the  lines  and  limitations  of  the  Penal  Code.  But  I 
know  this,  that,  whether  I  am  caught  at  it  or  not,  if  I  have  left 
undone  a  public  duty  I  am  disloyal  to  my  country.  I  can't  date 
back  to  the  war,  but  my  people  can,  thank  God,  and  I  inherit 
my  belief  in  this  country.  I  can  define  the  Republican  Party, 
wether  anybody  else  can  or  not,  and  it  is  that  aggregation  of 
men,  right  or  wrong,  who  never  dodge  a  responsibility;  it  is  that 
aggregation  of  men  that  can  be  led,  but  not  driven;  it  is  that 
combination  of  men  that  will  follow  their  mental  and  moral 
superiors  and  will  crush  their  mental  and  moral  inferiors,  and 
it  is  that  aggregation  of  men,  taking  their  inspirations  from  the 
foundation  of  this  government  and  from  the  pathetic  scenes  of 
the  Civil  War,  who  believe  whatever  we  are  or  whencesoever  we 
come,  we  cannot  enjoy  unless  we  transmit ;  and  a  man  who  sullies 
the  commercial  life  of  this  country,  the  man  who  violates  the 
sentiment  of  this  country  that  every  man  shall  have  a  chance  and 
not  just  talk  it,  is  just  as  bad  as  the  man  who  strikes  an  overt 
blow  at  her  physical  existence,  in  my  judgment. 

If  I  had  time  to-night  and  didn't  feel  that  I  were  trespassing 
upon  your  patience,  I  might  yield  to  a  desire  to  give  you  my 
own  definition  of  an  American  citizenship,  of  an  imperial  State — 
not  the  imperial  State.  We  know  what  the  imperial  State  is. 
(Cries  of  "Go  on!"  "Go  on!")  Not  at  all;  not  at  all.  I  may  be 
on  the  committee  next  year,  and  I  will  put  myself  on  the  pro- 
gram where  I  belong.  But  these  gentlemen  who  talk  about 
statistics,  these  gentlemen  who  write  reports,  these  gentlemen 
who  compare  us  with  other  countries,  waste  time.     We  are  not 


316  NATIONAL   REPUBLICAN   CLUB 

going  to  have  any  war  with  other  countries.     Why,  we  would 
buy  most  of  them  while  the  war  was  on.     Nobody  is  going  to 
fight  us.     They  know  their  business.     There  is  not  an  army  on 
the  face  of  this  earth  that  could  march  from  New  York  to  San 
Francisco,  whether  we  had  an  army  or  not.     They  would  be 
stoned  to  death.    But  what  I  want  to  see  is  that  kind  of  a  con- 
dition, not  where  we  take  any  satisfaction  in  trying  to  fool  any- 
body else,  but  where  we  quit  trying  to  fool  ourselves.    We  don^t 
fool  ourselves.     If  the  average  man  in  this  country  knew  how 
many  ether  people  there  were  who  were  "on  to  him,"  he  would 
fade  away;  only  they  don't  say  anything  about  it,  that's  all. 
They  are  too  gentlemanly.    Don't  let's  fool  ourselves;  don't  let's 
be  here  on  the  night  of  Lincoln's  birthday  and  give  all  our 
thought  and  sympathy  to  the  fact  that  Lincoln  did  his  duty. 
Why,  of  course,  or  we  wouldn't  be  here.    If  I  didn't  know  Gen- 
eral Howard  so  well,  and  I  had  heard  him  when  he  looked  over 
this  crowd  guess  that  there  were  seventeen  hundred  here,  I  would 
have  thought  he  had  been  doing  what  I  know  he  never  does. 
Lincoln  lived  just  at  the  right  time.     He  knew  about  all  there 
was  to  know,  but  he  didn't  brag  about  it;  and  Lincoln  didn't 
waste  any  time,  either,  in  telling  other  people  that  they  knew 
nothing.    He  allowed  them  the  right  of  having  an  opinion.    Just 
think  of  Lincoln  living  to-day  and  being  notified  that  he  had 
been  nominated,  and  ordering  water.    The  certificate  never  would 
be  filed.    If  that  is  the  test,  Lincoln  couldn't  have  run  for  office 
in  this  generation.     Lincoln  was  a  great  man;  Lincoln  was  on 
the  level  with  Lincoln — quite  an  important  thing  to  be.    Lincoln 
didn't  have  to  give  out  interviews  to  let  his  family  know  where 
he  was  nights.    An  American  is  good  enough  for  me.    I  am  not 
a  pessimist.     This  is  a  pretty  good  country;  we  have  a  pretty 
good  lot  of  people  scattered  around  this  country,  but  you  can't 


ADDRESS  OF  HON.  JOB  E.  HEDGES  317 

fool  them  any.  Once  in  a  while  you  can  lead  them  astray,  just 
a  litle  bit;  then  a  man  takes  to  himself  the  idea  of  great  leader- 
ship, and  then  something  happens  to  him,  and  it  is  in  a  small  note 
of  four  or  five  lines,  sometimes  called  political  obituary.  When 
we  get  together  and  discuss  our  duties,  don^t  let  us  necessarily 
read  them  only  out  of  the  statute  book — they  are  not  there — they 
are  in  the  human  heart,  and  I  would  rather  have  a  man  whose 
heart  beats  right  than  a  man  whose  head  works  too  fast.  I  had 
rather  have  a  man  who  can  smile  than  a  man  who  has  to  speak 
in  such  a  deep  tone  of  voice  you  can't  tell  whether  he  is  swear- 
ing or  praying;  I  would  rather  have  a  man  who  believes  that 
he  has  a  duty  to  somebody  else  and  fulfills  it  and  says  nothing 
about  it,  than  a  man  who  can  arise  on  the  4th  of  July  and  take 
an  American  flag  and  wear  it  out  in  thirty  minutes;  I  believe 
in  that  kind  of  American  patriotism  that  don't  require  an  audi- 
ence; I  believe  in  a  man  who  has  American  notions,  whether 
there  is  a  reporter  present  or  not;  I  believe  in  that  kind  of  cit- 
izenship that  fights  when  we  are  attacked  from  the  outside  ancT 
persuades  when  we  are  discussing  matters  of  our  own  affairs;  I 
believe  in  that  kind  of  country  loyalty  and  State  loyalty  that 
looks  around  to  see  who  it  is  that  said  it,  and  then  something 
happens.  I  was  discussing — and  with  this  I  close,  because  it  is 
to-morrow — I  was  discussing  the  other  day  at  a  celebrated  club 
on  Fifth  Avenue  a  few  simple  doctrines  of  what  I  thought  were 
necessary  for  a  man  who  had  a  belief  in  his  country,  and  I  was 
met  by  the  proposition  that  ''you  are  a  politician."  Well,  I  am 
glad  of  it.  I  am  for  it.  I  want  to  write  a  book  some  day;  I 
want  to  redefine  what  conservatism  means.  It  means  that  yon 
are  a  little  scared,  that's  all.  I  want  to  redefine  what  socialism 
means — that  means  you  are  not  scared.  I  want  to  define  what  a 
protected  interest  is,  but  I  want  to  find  out  where  it  came  from 


318  NATIONAL   REPUBLICAN   CLUB 

first.  I  want  to  find  out  if  you  have  a  right  to  protect  it,  and 
then  I  am  strong  for  protecting  it.  I  am  not  afraid  about  the 
subject  of  State  unity.  No  one  can  affect  that  unless  the  States 
want  it.  If  they  want  it,  they  will  have  it ;  if  they  want  to  give 
it  up,  they  will  give  it  up,  and  nobody  is  going  to  make  them. 
You  can't  make  American  people  do  things.  They  get  nervous 
about  it;  and  when  they  get  nervous  and  begin  to  compare  notes 
then  they  do  things,  and  when  they  do  things  they  are  real 
things.  But,  away  and  above  it  all — and  enjoying  your  applause 
as  much  as  any  man  who  lives — and  I'd  lie  if  I  said  I  didn't, 
and  I  won't  lie — I  believe  in  that  kind  of  patriotism  that  when 
a  man  is  about  to  indulge  in  any  act  of  any  kind  his  only  refrain 
is: 

"My  country,  'tis  of  thee; 
Sweet  land  of  liberty." 

and  if  he  can  square  his  conduct  by  that,  he  is  a  good  citizen; 
and  if  he  can't,  he  is  not  a  good  citizen,  whether  the  District 
Attorney  is  State  or  Federal. 


(Editor's  Note — Job  E.  Hedges  was  one  of  the  speakers  at  the 
Lincoln  Dinner  of  the  Middlesex  Club  in  Boston,  Mass.,  on  Feb- 
ruary 12,  1919.  In  view  of  the  brevity  of  his  New  York  Lincoln 
Dinner  speech,  the  compilers  of  this  volume  have  included  por- 
tions of  the  Boston  speech. — Emanuel  Hertz,  Charles  T.  White.) 


ADDRESS    OF 

HON.  JOB  E.  HEDGES 

At  the  Lincoln  Dinner  of  the  Middlesex  Club,  Boston 

Mr.  Toastmaster  and  gentlemen:  I  would  be  lacking  in  cour- 
tesy as  well  as  intelligence  not  to  admit  at  the  outset  that  an 
invitation  from  this  Club  is  a  command.  I  do  not  always  obey 
commands,  but  I  am  glad  to  be  here.  I  am  glad  to  have  heard 
a  toastmaster  who  understood  that  one  of  the  purposes  of  the 
evening  was  adequately  to  stand  his  speakers  on  their  feet  with 
a  running  start. 

It  is  a  pleasure  to  me  to  have  this  table  graced  by  Governor 
Coolidge.  We  have  heard  about  him,  in  New  York.  And  I  never 
could  quite  understand  what  all  this  fuss  was  about,  over  Gov- 
ernor Coolidge.  He  certainly  could  not  have  done  less  and  main- 
tained his  self-respect.  He  could  not  have  done  less  without  vio- 
lating his  oath  of  office.  But  the  charm  of  it  was  the  modesty 
in  the  ordinary  everyday  business  way  in  which  he  did  it.  It 
did  not  put  him  under  any  very  great  mental  or  moral  strain  to 
do  that  which,  had  he  abandoned,  would  have  made  him  lose  his 
self-respect.  Therefore  we  want  to  give  him  full  meed  of  praise, 
but  don't  let's  spoil  him. 

I  rejoice  to  be  among  Eepublicans,  too — living  in  New  York. 
That  is,  Eepublicans  who  are  such  all  the  year  round  and  know 
where  they  are — not  spasmodic  Republicans  who  arrive  at  their 
intellectual  conclusions  from  their  subconscious  rhetorical  pos- 


NATIONAL   REPUBLICAN   CLUB 


sibilities,  but  who  take  to  it  naturally  and  cultivate  it,  and  then 
it  becomes  a  habit.  And  a  decent  habit  saves  a  great  deal  of 
wear  and  tear  on  the  conscience.  If  one  can  form  his  prin- 
ciples gradually  by  a  sort  of  natural  affiliation  until  they  be- 
come a  conviction,  then  the  way  is  easy.  I  have  been  a  Eepub- 
lican  ever  since  I  can  remember,  both  by  inheritance  and  adop- 
tion. I  tried  it  on  once  in  New  York.  The  Governor  (indicating 
Governor  Coolidge)  was  more  successful  than  I  was.  It  took 
two  men,  however,  to  beat  me.  And  I  am  glad  to  be  here  on  a 
Lincoln  Day,  and  so  much  has  been  said  about  Lincoln  that  may- 
be it  is  not  necessary  for  me  unduly  to  indulge  in  particular 
specifications. 

I  would  like  to  interpret  for  a  moment  if  I  may — it  is  rather 
a  broad  field  but  everyone  is  taking  a  broad  field — oilr  situation 
in  which  we  find  ourselves  on  this  day.  My  principles  politically 
and  otherwise  are  very  simple.  I  believe  in  an  overpowering 
Providence;  I  believe  in  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States; 
I  believe  in  the  Ten  Commandments;  and  I  respect  the  Fourteen 
Points. 

Lincoln  is  wonderful  to  me  for  what  he  was  not.  Lincoln 
never  got  himself  mixed  up  with  the  principles.  Lincoln  never 
thought  he  personified  a  principle,  and  Lincoln  never  believed 
that,  being  a  principle,  everyone  had  to  bear  allegiance.  His 
proposition  was  that  the  principle  was  the  important  thing  and 
that  everybody  else  was  an  agency.  That  is  sound.  That  word 
"agency"  sometimes  gets  into  our  campaigns  when  we  want  to 
represent  the  common  people,  and  the  things  that  are  done  to 
the  common  people  these  days  in  the  name  of  uplift  are  beyond 
the  realm  of  human  understanding. 

Lincoln  had  one  very  great  advantage  as  a  leader — he  had 
been  a  follower.    He  knew  a  lot  about  American  politics  because 


ADDRESS   JF  HON.  JOB  E.  HEDGES  321 

he  had  participated  in  them.  He  knew  the  voters  because  he 
had  gone  to  the  polls.  He  understood  their  motives  because  he 
had  been  in  intimate  contact  with  them.  And  therefore  he  did 
not  talk  at  them,  but  talked  to  them,  which  makes  a  great  dif- 
ference. We  have  become  in  this  country  a  whole  nation  of 
orators.  We  save  this  country  every  four  years  regularly.  And 
the  country  has  gone  on  for  one  hundred  and  forty  odd  years 
and  prospered,  despite  everything  anybody  or  any  party  could  do 
to  it ;  which  persuades  me  that  there  is  a  God.  And,  Presbyterian 
as  I  am,  my  faith  personally  has  once  or  twice  been  shaken  on 
the  doctrine  of  predestination. 

Lincoln  will  live  long  after  he  ceases  to  be  read.  Most  men 
only  live  when  they  are  being  heard,  or  when  the  papers  quote 
themselves  to  them.  An  obituary  notice  is  sometimes  less  de- 
vastating to  human  judgment  than  is  a  headline,  because  when 
a  man  believes  in  headlines  written  about  himself,  his  mind  has 
begun  to  decay  and  he  has  lost  his  sense  of  proportion.  And 
when  a  man  thinks  he  is  a  genius  then  the  whole  question  is  over. 

We  spend  the  most  of  our  time  in  this  country  looking  for 
geniuses,  and  we  do  not  need  the  geniuses  because  a  genius,  as 
a  rule,  is  sorry  for  everyone  else  and  because  he  thinks  he  is  not 
appreciated.  What  we  need  is  a  large  crop  of  plain,  ordinary, 
everyday,  balanced,  sound  minds,  and  among  those  I  would  like 
to  classify  Governor  Coolidge. 

Now  this  Government  of  ours  is  a  very  peculiar  thing  and 
Abraham  Lincoln  knew  it  better  than  any  man  of  this  time. 
There  is  no  need  of  comparing  our  great  men;  they  cannot  b(F 
compared.  Washington  was  the  creator  of  this  country,  Lincoln 
was  its  saviour,  Roosevelt  was  its  vitalizer.  And  its  perpetuator 
will  be  the  plain,  everyday  men  who  seek  principle  as  against 
publicity,  who  understand  what  this  nation  means,  and  will  pay 


322  NATIONAL   REPUBLICAN   CLUB 

the  fair  price  in  service.  That  is  the  test  of  Americanism  to-day, 
and  that  is  what  we  have  got  to  live  up  to.  I  don't  care  who 
comes  here.  I  am  vitally  interested  in  what  he  does  when  he 
gets  here.  My  people  did  not  come  from  as  far  back  in  time  as 
some  of  yours  did — but  they  are  just  as  good.  They  were  not 
under  the  strain  that  compelled  them  to  start  earlier.  They  were 
satisiied  with  conditions  as  they  were  and  came  over  at  a  more 
convenient  season.  They  did  not  bring  anything  with  them,  and 
therefore  they  are  analogous  to  your  people. 

Abraham  Lincoln  was  a  silent  prayer.  And  no  man  can  pray 
understandingly  in  my  judgment  who  is  not  delicate  enough  in 
his  spiritual  make-up  to  get  in  contact  with  a  higher  power,  com- 
fortably. I  have  known  men  to  pray — and  I  would  not  speak 
flippantly — effectively  and  attractively,  but  they  don't  start  any 
emotion  anywhere,  they  don't  help  anybody  else.  I  have  known 
people  to  remain  on  their  knees  so  long  that  they  got  muscle- 
bound.  I  would  rather  have  a  man  pray  in  a  little  less  respect- 
ful attitude  and  be  able  to  respond  to  a  cry  for  help  before  mur- 
der is  committed.  I  may  be  wrong  about  that  and  I  have  no 
pride  of  opinion  about  it,  but  I  know  this,  that  the  time  has 
come  when  we  have  all  got  to  decide,  not  emotionally,  not  senti- 
mentally, but  contractually,  whether  we  size  up  to  our  citizen- 
ship, and  that  citizenship  we  all  know  is  predicated  on  three  or 
four  very  simple  litle  everyday  things,  so  simple  that  we  have 
forgotten  them. 

Theoretically  every  citizen  is  capacitated  to  vote  yes  or  no  on 
every  problem  that  comes  before  this  country.  The  fact  is  that 
he  is  not.  The  theory  is  sound,  but  the  man  is  unqualified.  He 
has  not  the  opportunity.  And  no  one  is  qualified,  really.  But 
everybody  is  qualified  from  the  smallest  unit  to  appoint  someone 
who  shall  represent  him  in  a  continually  increasing  load  of  re- 


ADDRESS  OF  HON.  JOB  E.  HEDGES  323 

protest.  And  the  heart  protest  is  an  appeal  against  something 
that  is  wrong.  The  heart  does  not  measure,  it  understands.  And 
when  the  heart  acts,  the  brain  decides  the  degree  of  service  we 
are  going  to  give  to  sustain  our  beliefs.  And  this  is  an  affirmative 
country,  acting  negatively. 

There  is  no  need  of  praising  Lincoln,  no  need  of  passing  our 
time  in  encomiums.  If  from  a  Lincoln  banquet  men  can  leave 
the  room  mentally  refreshed,  with  an  added  inspiration,  with  an 
intensity  of  desire  to  perform  service,  if  they  can  do  that,  Lin- 
coln has  not  lived  in  vain. 

I  venture  to  say  that  the  future  of  this  world  in  a  measure 
may  depend  on  what  the  English-speaking  people  do  together. 
That  means  high  duty,  high  responsibility,  and  we  cannot  dodge 
sponsibility.  And  to  avoid  responsibility,  even,  we  have  got 
ourselves  so  organized  that  we  have  something  that  we  call  "di- 
rect primaries,"  lest  the  people  shall  get  together  and  confer  on 
something  and  take  a  responsibility,  and  have  a  platform  of  faith, 
and  a  declaration  of  principles.  So  in  my  city  we  have  a  subter- 
fuge. We  have  an  unofficial  convention.  It  is  unmoral  in  the 
State  of  New  York  to  admittedly  meet  together  for  the  purpose 
of  agreeing  on  civic  policies.  It  is  good  law  in  New  York  City 
to  meet  together  in  private,  in  secret,  and  agree  on  something, 
to  put  it  over,  and  if  it  goes  over  to  claim  the  people  did  it. 
That  is  just  plain,  ordinary,  everyday  bunk. 

Lincoln  understood  one  thing  better  than  any  man  that  has 
ever  been  in  this  country.  He  knew  that  emotion  is  the  thing 
that  decides  matters  as  compared  with  mere  legal,  analytical 
argument.  Ambition  and  avarice  are  dangerous.  When  com- 
bined, they  are  most  destructive,  and  in  spite  of  many  things  I 
read,  I  believe  that  the  great  reforms  in  this  world,  and  I  believe 
it  truly,  have  come  from  a  heart  protest  rather  than  a  brain 


324  NATIONAL   REPUBLICAN   CLUB 

it.  But  that  union  is  a  heart  union.  A  union  not  to  respond  to 
each  man's  loss  of  self-respect,  of  religious  backsliding.  The 
American  people  can  be  led,  they  can  be  persuaded,  they  are  the 
most  lovable,  delightful,  helpful  people  in  the  world.  There  is 
something  about  our  atmosphere  when  people  get  here.  If  they 
try  to  breathe  it — why,  a  man  cannot  live  in  this  country  and 
not  be  better,  if  a  man  really  lives  here.  But  if  his  mind  is  else- 
where, he  is  only  tarrying  here.  He  has  got  to  contribute  of 
course,  and  the  test  of  generosity  is  not  how  much  you  give  but 
how  much  you  have  got  left. 

I  know  in  my  own  heart  and  I  wish  it  were  not  so.  I  would 
like  to  have  us  idealized.  I  am  a  great  believer  in  this  country. 
1  am  glad  to  speak  at  the  same  table  as  a  gentleman  who  came 
irom  the  other  side  of  the  line.  My  father  was  killed  at  Peters- 
l)urg.  But  this  country  is  so  great  that  he  and  I  can  sit  here 
without  the  difference  of  a  heart-beat.  Their  lives  have  been 
made  hard;  they  have  been  deprived  of  their  hope,  their  joy  and 
their  existence.  Wherever  there  is  suffering  our  minds  have  got 
to  be.  There  is  a  great  deal  of  difference  between  living  isolated 
and  living  geographically.  And  you  cannot  live  isolated,  geo- 
graphically, if  there  is  a  means  of  communication.  Only  some- 
one has  got  to  decide  how  you  are  going  to  communicate.  I  be- 
lieve in  sending  missionaries  to  foreign  lands.  That  is  one  of  the 
doctrines  of  my  church,  and  the  Bishop's.  But  I  would  not  give 
two  cents  for  a  ton  of  missionaries  who  thought  they  ought  not 
to  go.  But  when  you  get  a  heart  that  wants  to  go  and  a  mind 
that  tells  it  to  go,  and  it  goes  and  makes  the  sacrifice  and  per- 
forms its  duty  in  the  presence  of  the  great  God,  you  have  ac- 
complished something. 

Now,  what  is  this  "Americanism"?  Let  us  analyze  it  for  a 
moment,  and  I  will  stop.    It  is  not  something  that  starts  in  the 


ADDR.i:SS  OF  HON.  JOB  E.  HEDGES  325 

United  States.  Americanism  antedates  the  United  States  by  cen- 
turies. Americanism  started  on  Mount  Sinai.  It  was  at  Calvary. 
It  was  at  every  place  for  its  inspiration  where  there  was  a  human 
heart  longing  for  something  better,  and  that  entrusted  its  affairs 
to  the  care  of  a  great  God.  That  is  where  Americanism  started. 
Anywhere  on  this  earth  that  a  human  being  yearned  for  some- 
thing better  and  was  willing  to  pay  the  price,  or  sacrificed  to  get 
it — and  you  know  how  your  forebears  came  here — that  was  the 
incipient  point  of  Americanism. 

I  do  not  know  so  much  about  the  laws,  I  do  not  know  much 
about  labor  and  capital,  but  I  do  not  believe  there  will  ever  be 
established  a  status  quo  between  those  interests  until  each  one  of 
them  recognizes  a  primal  obligation  to  government,  before  they 
have  the  right  to  consider  their  individual  preferment.  And  that 
is  not  contact  but  that  is  spiritual  government. 

And  so  with  the  inspiration  of  Lincoln.  Without  going  into 
details,  with  no  thought  that  I  can  add  one  other  chaplet  to  the 
millions  that  adorn  his  spiritual  brow,  I  want  to  say  that  what 
we  can  do  when  we  are  in  doubt,  when  we  are  trying  to  trust 
to  logic  to  work  out  the  future  —  let  us  harken  back  to 
the  spiritual  ancestors  of  this  country,  let  us  synchronize  our 
thoughts  with  their  conduct,  let  us  be  manly  enough  then  to  again 
be  sentimental.  Let  us  understand  that  people  in  the  aggregate 
are  no  different  than  the  individual,  but  they  are  more  dangerous. 
This  is  a  spiritual  country  or  it  is  nothing.  This  country  is  kept 
going  by  the  God-fearing  men  and  women  of  all  denominations 
and  beliefs  who  practice  of  human  charity,  who  treat  their 
government  as  a  God-given  instrument  under  which  to  live 
and  carry  on  their  lives  as  laid  down  in  Holy  Writ.  And  the 
man  who  cannot  conceive  of  a  God  cannot  conceive  of  the  United 
States.    A  man  who  cannot  conceive  of  a  heartbeat,  and  a  heart- 


326  NATIONAL   REPUBLICAN   CLUB 

beat  outweighs  a  syllogism,  a  man  who  cannot  read  another  heart 
has  no  heart.  I  would  have  them  come  from  anywhere.  I  would 
have  our  discussions  tempered  by  our  belief  in  our  institutions. 
And  I  recall  just  one  word,  and  with  that  I  close.  I  recall  one 
phrase  of  Washington  at  a  time  when  everything  seemed  lost 
and  the  hearts  of  the  patriots  and  the  most  faithful  sank  within 
them.  But  Washington,  understanding  the  psychology  of  the 
people,  in  addition  to  its  law,  as  did  Lincoln,  said: 

"Take  from  me  the  scattered  and  dejected  fragment  of 
my  power,  take  from  me  all  that  I  have  left  and  give 
me  a  banner  and  let  me  plant  it  upon  the  mountain- 
tops  of  ecstasy  and  I  will  take  my  country  and  set  her 
free." 

This  country  has  never  accomplished  anything  by  judicial  in- 
terpretation or  Constitutional  Amendment  or  anything  else,  that 
counted  anything  in  the  great  scheme  of  life,  that  was  not  ac- 
companied by  the  great  spiritual  emotion  which  we  call  a  moral 
sense.  And  as  the  philosophers  had  their  theory  that  these 
spheres  go  through  space  and  with  an  awful  speed  strikes  to- 
gether and  make  a  note  called  the  harmony  of  the  spheres,  I 
want  to  leave  this  last  word,  that  I  hope  if  that  is  true — and 
let  us  believe  that  it  is,  for  the  sake  of  imagination — that  this 
great  people  on  this  wonderful  sphere,  going  through  the  vast 
limitless  spaces  put  there  by  the  great  Almighty,  that  the  note 
that  we  will  strike  will  be  the  note  that  Lincoln  struck,  an  al- 
legiance to  God,  a  duty  to  our  brother  man,  and  a  sacrifice  of  all 
that  is  in  him  to  the  great  theories  of  Constitution  which  next 
to  the  Divine  Book  is  the  most  important  physical  thing  in  this 
world  to-day. 


REV.  CHARLES  R.   BROWN 

Clergyman    and    lecturer;    Dean    of    the    Divinity 
School,  Yale  University. 


ADDRESS    OF 

REV.  CHARLES  REYNOLDS  BROWN 


You  may  possibly  be  interested  in  knowing  how  this  study  of 
a  great  man's  life  originally  came  about.  When  the  new  century 
was  ushered  in,  the  event  was  celebrated  in  San  Francisco  at  a 
large  banquet  for  men  at  the  Merchants'  Club.  The  Committee 
of  Arrangements  provided  four  addresses  on  "The  Achievements 
of  the  Nineteenth  Century."  Dr.  David  Starr  Jordan,  President 
of  Stanford  University,  was  asked  to  speak  on  **The  Greatest 
Scientific  Discovery  of  the  Nineteenth  Century."  He  very  nat- 
urally named  *'The  Principle  of  Organic  Evolution"  and  devoted 
his  address  to  indicating  the  bearing  of  that  principle  upon  sci- 
entific thought  during  the  closing  decades  of  the  century.  Pro- 
fessor Charles  M.  Gayley,  the  head  of  the  English  Department  in 
the  University  of  California,  was  asked  to  speak  on  "The  Great- 
est Book  of  the  Nineteenth  Century."  He  at  once  excluded  all 
scientific  works  as  not  belonging  to  pure  literature.  After  dis- 
cussing the  merits  of  various  authors  he  named  Goethe's  "Faust" 
as  the  greatest  literary  production  of  the  hundred  years.  Mr. 
Fairfax  H.  Whelan,  a  business  man  in  San  Francisco,  was  asked 
to  speak  on  "The  Greatest  Mechanical  Invention  of  the  Nine- 
teenth Century."  He  surprised  us  all — and  no  one  knew  in  ad- 
vance what  choice  any  one  of  the  four  speakers  had  made.  We 
expected  something  of  an  electrical  nature^  but  he  named  "Bes- 


330  NATIONAL   REPUBLICAN   CLUB 

semer  Steel,"  the  cheaper  process  of  converting  pig  iron  into 
steel,  on  the  ground  of  its  wider  utility.  He  maintained  that  the 
greatest  invention  was  the  one  which  served  the  interests  of  the 
largest  number  of  people.  I  was  asked  to  speak  that  evening  on 
"The  Greatest  Man  of  the  Nineteenth  Century";  and  the  after- 
dinner  speech  that  night  has  by  that  same  process  of  "organic 
evolution"  gradually  shaped  itself  into  this  longer  address. 

It  might  seem  a  futile  task  to  seek  to  name  the  greatest  man 
in  any  century.  It  is  not  easy  to  compare  one  great  man  with 
another.  And  "Comparisons  are  odorous,"  Dogberry  said.  His 
English  was  a  trifle  lame,  but  he  had  a  show  of  facts  on  his  side. 
Those  earnest  debates  which  we  used  to  have  thirty  or  forty 
years  ago  in  the  country  lyceums  as  to  which  was  the  greater 
man,  Columbus  who  discovered  this  country  or  Washington  who 
fathered  it,  did  not  really  get  us  anywhere.  They  gave  the  young 
budding  orators  a  chance  to  get  on  their  legs  and  try  their 
powers,  but  the  purpose  of  the  discussion  was  defeated  by  the 
difficulty  of  reducing  the  various  fractions  of  the  total  human 
achievement  to  a  common  denominator  so  that  they  might  be 
compared.  It  is  not  easy  to  compare  a  great  military  commander 
with  a  man  who  is  great  in  literature;  or  a  great  statesman  with 
a  great  scientist.  Yet  straight  in  the  face  of  all  these  difficulties 
I  am  undertaking  to  name  to  you  the  greatest  man  of  the  Nine- 
teenth Century  and  to  justify  my  choice,  if  I  may,  at  the  bar  of 
your  own  judgment. 

In  entering  upon  this  discussion  I  would  offer  these  considera- 
tions as  furnishing  us  a  valid  principle  of  selection.  We  may  say 
that  a  great  man  is  a  man  who  makes  some  significant  period  of 
history  different  from  what  it  would  have  been  apparently  but 
for  his  influence.  Then  when  we  come  to  measure  the  size  of  that 
section  of  history,  the  value  of  the  interests  involved  and  the 


ADDRESS  OF  REV.  CHARLES  REYNOLDS  BROWN,  D.D.  331 

permanence  of  the  work  accomplished,  we  may  readily  determine 
the  degree  of  his  greatness.  If  in  all  those  three  regards  he 
stands  higher  than  any  other  man  of  his  time,  he  may  justly  be 
regarded  as  the  greatest  man  of  the  period. 

Now,  we  find  in  the  Nineteenth  Century  a  certain  historic 
event  which  in  my  judgment  was  the  most  significant  and  in- 
fluential occurrence  of  the  hundred  years.  I  refer  to  the  Civil 
War,  fought  out  here  in  our  own  land  in  1861-65.  You  may 
measure  that  war  any  way  you  please — by  the  extent  and  value 
of  the  territory  at  stake;  or  by  the  number  of  men  in  the  field, 
exceeding  that  of  any  modern  war  until  the  recent  Great  War  in 
Europe;  or  by  the  conscientiousness  and  enlightenment  of  the 
opposing  hosts — it  was  a  war  fought  not  by  paid  mercenaries,  but 
by  citizens  who  knew  why  they  were  there  and  for  what  they 
were  fighting;  or  by  the  far-reach  of  the  principles  involved  in 
their  bearing  upon  the  fate  of  a  great  nation  threatened  with 
disruption,  upon  the  interest  of  human  freedom  and  upon  the 
cause  of  democracy,  touching  as  it  does  the  development  of  the 
rank  and  file  of  the  race — you  may  measure  that  war  any  way 
you  please  and,  I  believe,  you  will  regard  it  as  the  most  significant 
occurrence  of  the  century. 

Now,  in  bringing  the  various  issues  in  that  war  to  a  successful 
conclusion — in  freeing  four  millions  of  our  fellow-beings  from 
slavery;  in  preserving  a  government  which  stands  perhaps  as  the 
nearest  approach  to  a  successful  democracy  on  a  large  scale  thus 
far  in  history;  and  in  closing  the  debate  upon  certain  questions 
which  had  troubled  this  Republic  for  decades  and  now  trouble 
it  no  more — in  bringing  those  issues  to  a  conclusion,  many  great 
men  wrought  together  and  the  credit  for  the  outcome  does  not 
belong  solely  to  any  one  man  of  the  group. 

It  was  a  gigantic  task  to  bring  a  free,  prosperous  and  resolute 


332  NATIONAL   REPUBLICAN   CLUB 

people,  intelligently  and  conscientiously  divided  in  their  political 
judgment,  to  submit  to  the  will  of  the  majority,  as  expressed  on 
the  field  of  battle,  and  then  to  go  on  together.  To  go  on  in  what 
has  proved  to  be  not  slumbering  hatred  nor  smoldering  rebellion, 
but  in  actual,  growing,  joyous  unity — it  was  a  gigantic  task! 
Seward  and  Chase  and  Stanton  did  their  appointed  work  and  they 
did  it  well.  Grant  and  Sherman  and  Farragut  accomplished  their 
terrible  task  with  thoroughness.  Henry  Ward  Beecher,  William 
Lloyd  Garrison  and  Harriet  Beecher  Stowe,  to  each  one  of  these 
belongs  a  place  of  honor!  And  to  a  great  unnumbered  host  of 
plain  men  and  women  who  fought  and  thought,  who  gave  and 
prayed  for  the  Union,  to  each  one  of  these  our  gratitude  is  due! 
But  to  one  man  more  than  all  the  rest  belongs  the  highest  place 
in  that  struggle  and  I  named  him  that  night  as  the  greatest  man 
of  the  Nineteenth  Century,  the  first  martyred  President,  Abraham 
Lincoln. 

Now  I  hope  that  this  choice  did  not  proceed  simply  from  the 
fact  that  I  am  an  American  myself  and  love  my  own  country 
and  its  people  as  I  could  love  no  other.  And  I  feel  that  I  am  a 
good  deal  of  an  American.  My  family  has  been  here  a  long  time. 
My  ancestors  landed  at  Jamestown,  Virginia,  in  1607.  They  had 
their  trunks  all  unpacked  and  their  household  arrangements  all 
in  good  running  order  when  those  Pilgrim  Fathers  finally  got 
around  in  1620.  We  were  glad  to  see  them  when  they  came. 
They  were  good  people  and  were  destined  to  make  an  important 
contribution  to  the  life  of  the  Nation.  But  we  were  here  first. 
And  we  have  not  been  moving  away  nor  dying  out.  1  do  not 
know  how  it  may  be  with  other  family  stocks,  but  I  feel  thor- 
oughly sure  that  when  Gabriel  blows  his  trumpet,  in  every  tele- 
phone book  and  city  directory  from  Eastport,  Maine,  to  San  Diego, 
California,  there  will  still  be  pages  and  pages  of  "Browns." 


ADDRESS  OF  REV.  CHARLES  REYNOLDS  BROWN,  D.D.    333 

I  feel,  therefore,  that  because  I  belong  to  a  large  family  and 
to  a  family  which  has  been  here  a  long  time,  I  am  a  good  deal 
of  an  American.  But  nothing  splendidly  human  is  ever  foreign 
to  any  lover  of  his  race.  I  have  tried  to  study  the  work  of  great 
men  in  other  lands. 

I  hope  the  choice  of  Lincoln  did  not  spring  simply  from  the 
fact  that  he  wrought  with  certain  issues  which  interest  my  own 
mind  and  heart  more  than  other  issues  might.  I  have  tried  to 
study  the  work  of  great  men  in  other  fields  of  endeavor.  From 
that  excursion  into  other  lands  and  other  lines  of  effort  I  came 
back  all  the  more  firmly  persuaded  that  the  highest  place  of 
honor  in  the  Nineteenth  Century  belongs  to  that  President  of  the 
United  States. 

Let  me  name  what  I  would  regard  as  the  four  main  elements 
in  Lincoln's  greatness. 

First,  his  combination  of  lofty  idealism  with  practical  sagacity 
in  bringing  things  to  pass.  He  had  his  ideals.  They  hung  in  his 
sky  as  definite  and  as  illuminating  as  the  visions  of  a  seer.  The 
abolition  of  slavery,  the  preservation  of  the  Union,  the  healing 
of  the  breach  between  the  North  and  South,  the  welfare  of  the 
entire  American  people!  Toward  those  ideals  he  steadfastly  set 
his  face.  But  he  was  always  a  concrete  rather  than  an  abstract 
idealist.  He  had  a  way  of  seeing  what  ought  to  be  and  of  seeing 
how  it  could  be.  Then  he  showed  himself  able  to  get  in  and  do 
it.  This  combination  of  lofty  idealism  which  gave  him  the  moral 
passion  of  a  saint  or  a  reformer,  together  with  the  well-seasoned 
sagacity  of  a  practiced  diplomat,  made  him  a  statesman  of  the 
first  order. 

He  was  a  great  man  and  he  was  a  good  man.  If  we  were  start- 
ing out  to  canonize  some  of  our  American  Protestant  saints  I 
should  be  in  favor  of  beginning  with  Abraham  Lincoln.    But  his 


334  NATIONAL   REPUBLICAN   CLUB 

goodness  was  always  of  the  homely,  useful  type.  It  was  not  the 
abstract,  doctrinaire,  John  the  Baptist  sort  of  goodness  which 
demands  for  its  exercise  that  it  be  taken  off  into  the  desert  to 
live  on  locusts  and  wild  honey,  without  wife  or  child,  without 
citizenship  or  business  connection  or  any  of  the  normal  relation- 
ships of  life.  Like  the  Son  of  Man,  Abraham  Lincoln  "came  eat- 
ing and  drinking."  He  came  building  his  high  ideals  into  an 
every-day  order  of  plain  fact. 

He  was  just  as  desirous  as  Emerson  ever  was  of  hitching  his 
wagon  to  a  star.  His  Gettysburg  Address  and  his  Second  In- 
augural, classics  they  are  in  political  utterance,  show  that  he 
could  hitch  his  wagon  nowhere  else  than  to  the  highest  star  in 
sight.  But  he  was  always  willing  to  have  all  four  wheels  of  the 
wagon  on  the  ground.  He  was  ready  to  get  down  and  grease 
the  axles  so  that  his  own  particular  wagon-load  of  effort  might 
run  with  the  least  possible  friction.  He  was  there  encouraging 
the  team  by  such  homely  words  of  cheer  as  made  him  one  of  the 
plainest  of  men.  He  was,  throughout  his  illustrious  career,  a 
concrete  idealist. 

Before  Lincoln  died  he  had  the  joy  of  seeing  the  slaves  all 
freed  by  his  Emancipation  Proclamation.  He  saw  the  Union  pre- 
served without  the  loss  of  a  single  State.  He  saw  the  armed  re- 
bellion brought  practically  to  an  end.  He  saw  the  great  volun- 
teer armies  of  Grant  and  Sherman  ready  to  be  mustered  out  and 
to  be  returned  to  their  homes  and  to  peaceful  industry.  And  he 
must  have  known  that  to  this  magnificent  result  he,  more  than 
any  other  one  man,  had  contributed. 

It  had  told  tremendously  upon  his  strength;  body,  brain  and 
heart  had  all  been  taxed  to  the  utmost.  If  we  were  to  measure 
his  term  in  the  White  House,  not  by  the  lapse  of  days,  but  by 
the  consumption  of  vitality,  it  would  be  drawn  out  into  a  con- 


ADDRESS  OF  REV.  CHARLES  REYNOLDS  BROWN,  D.D.    335 

siderable  portion  of  the  allotted  three  score  years  and  ten.  And 
I  feel  confident  that  I  am  correct  in  asserting  that  the  assassin's 
bullet  only  anticipated  an  event  which  would  not  have  been  long 
postponed  when  once  the  reaction  from  the  terrible  stress  of  war 
times  had  set  in. 

And  if  Lincoln  could  have  looked  ahead  and  could  have  fore- 
seen the  speedy  end  of  his  career,  he  might  have  said,  as  did  the 
prophet  of  old,  "It  is  enough!  Now  let  thy  servant  depart  in 
peace,  for  mine  eyes  have  seen  the  salvation  of  my  people  Israel." 
His  great  ideals  had  all  become  accomplished  facts.  I  would 
name,  therefore,  as  the  first  element  in  his  greatness,  the  com- 
bination of  lofty  idealism  with  practical  sagacity  in  bringing 
things  to  pass. 

The  second  element  I  would  name  would  be  his  power  of  com- 
prehending men  of  extreme  views.  It  was  Frederick  W.  Robert- 
son who  used  to  maintain  that  the  truth,  as  a  rule,  does  not  lie 
with  either  extreme.  Nor  does  it  lie  (as  many  soft-hearted  and 
soft-headed  people  like  to  think)  with  the  golden  mean,  the  half- 
way position,  the  compromise  which  misses  the  strength  of  both 
extremes.  The  truth,  Robertson  maintained,  lies  rather  in  the 
recognition  of  certain  deeper  underlying  principles  which  make 
possible  the  strength  of  both  the  extremes. 

Now  in  that  quality  of  insight  Abraham  Lincoln  was  a  past 
master.  He  had  come  into  prominence  chiefly  by  his  anti-slavery 
speeches  in  the  Douglas  debates.  He  had  been  elected  to  the 
Presidency  by  the  votes  of  tens  of  thousands  of  men  who  knew 
very  little  about  him,  except  that  he  was  a  man  who  hated 
slavery.  But  the  moment  he  was  elected,  he  refused  to  be  re- 
garded as  the  advance  agent  or  the  general  manager  of  the  aboli- 
tion movement.  He  refused  to  wear  the  tag  of  any  section  or  of 
any  party  or  of  any  particular  school  of  political  opinion.     He 


336  NATIONAL   REPUBLICAN   CLTJB 

insisted  that  now  he  was  President  of  the  whole  United  States, 
North  and  South,  loyal  and  rebellious,  bond  and  free.  He  was 
their  President  and  he  was  there  to  serve  their  interests  as  best 
he  might. 

He  was  roundly  scolded  for  taking  this  broad  view  of  the  mat- 
ter by  the  extremists  of  both  types.  Wendell  Phillips,  a  finished 
Harvard  scholar,  a  polished  Boston  gentleman,  a  wonderful  orator 
— ^in  my  judgment  almost  the  finest  we  have  produced  in  this 
land — but  a  man  singularly  defective  in  good  judgment,  scolded 
away  at  Lincoln  in  a  most  abusive  fashion.  He  called  him  ^^a 
mere  huckster  in  politics."  He  called  him  "the  slave-hound  from 
Illinois"  because  in  the  early  years  of  his  administration  Lincoln 
allowed  fugitive  slaves  to  be  returned  to  their  masters  in  the 
border  States. 

And  Horace  Greeley,  an  earnest,  warm-hearted,  forcible,  blun- 
dering man  up  to  the  day  of  his  death,  scolded  away  at  Lincoln 
in  the  columns  of  the  New  York  Tribune,  making  that  paper  a 
great  hindrance  when  it  could  have  been  a  mighty  help.  The 
New  York  Tribune  at  that  time  was  the  political  Four  Gospels, 
and  Acts,  and  Epistles  all  bound  into  one,  for  a  great  many  peo- 
ple here  at  the  North.  The  old  farmer  out  here  at  the  Four 
Corners  did  not  know  exactly  what  he  did  think  about  things 
until  he  got  his  "weekly  Trybune,"  as  he  called  it,  and  set  down 
to  read  what  Horace  Greeley  had  to  say  about  it  all. 

Lincoln  listened  to  them  all  and  was  unmoved  by  them  all. 
He  also  had  the  abolition  of  slavery  a  good  deal  at  heart,  but 
he  also  had  a  responsibility  which  those  gentlemen  did  not  share, 
and  which  they  were  not  always  able  to  see.  He  had  the  Eman- 
cipation Proclamation  in  his  heart  a  long,  long  time  before  his 
wise  head  approved  its  issuance  or  before  his  right  hand  wrote 


ADDRESS  OF  REV.  CHARLES  REYNOLDS  BROWN,  D.D.  337 

it  out  in  firm  lines.  He  knew  that  its  hour  had  not  yet  come  and 
so  he  calmly  waited  for  the  fullness  of  time. 

Away  over  at  the  other  extreme  in  those  days  were  the  War 
Democrats  and  other  men  of  their  way  of  thinking.  They  be- 
lieved in  the  Union,  but  they  had  no  money  to  spend  and  no  blood 
to  spill  in  freeing  slaves.  They  insisted  that  Lincoln  was  saying 
altogether  too  much  about  abolition  and  was  moving  altogether 
too  fast  in  that  direction.  Their  scolding  was  ofttimes  only  sec- 
ond to  that  of  the  extreme  abolitionists  like  Wendell  Phillips  and 
Horace  Greeley. 

Lincoln  knew  that  the  underlying  principle  in  that  great  strug- 
gle was  the  preservation  of  the  Union,  the  maintenance  of  the 
integrity  of  our  country.  He  was  accustomed  to  say,  "If  I  could 
save  the  Union  by  freeing  all  of  the  slaves,  I  would  do  that.  If 
I  could  save  the  Union  without  freeing  any  of  the  slaves,  I  would 
do  that.  If  I  could  save  the  Union  by  freeing  part  of  the  slaves 
and  leaving  the  rest  alone,  I  would  do  that.  What  I  do,  I  do 
because  I  believe  it  serves  the  cause  of  the  Union.  And  what  I 
leave  undone,  I  leave  undone  because  I  believe  that  serves  the 
cause  of  the  Union." 

He  knew  full  well  that  the  Union  would  not  "continue  to  exist 
half-slave  and  half-free."  But  he  knew  also  that  the  only  prin- 
ciple upon  which  he  could  draw  together  those  men  of  extreme 
views  was  the  preservation  of  the  Union,  the  maintenance  of 
the  integrity  of  our  common  country. 

I  would  name,  therefore,  as  the  second  element  in  his  greatness 
his  power  of  comprehending  and  in  the  end  of  utilizing  men  of 
extreme  views  by  keeping  to  the  front  the  deeper  underlying 
principles. 

The  third  element  I  would  name  would  be  his  ability  to  keep 
«los«  to  tJve  hearts  of  the  people  in  symuathetic  fashion  and  ye^ 


338  NATIONAL   REPUBLICAN   CLUB 

lead  them  steadily  in  those  lines  of  action  which  he  desired  them 
to  take.  It  was  James  Russell  Lowell,  in  his  essay  on  Lincoln, 
who  said  that  there  was  "a  certain  tone  of  familiar  dignity,  a 
kind  of  fireside  plainness"  about  the  man  not  only  in  his  con- 
versation and  in  his  speeches,  but  even  in  his  State  papers.  He 
did  not  have  the  air  of  a  man  who  was  laying  down  the  law  to 
the  country.  He  showed,  rather,  the  attitude  of  one  who  was 
taking  the  whole  country  into  his  confidence  and  talking  matters 
over  with  it  as  one  neighbor  might  discuss  the  questions  of  the 
day  over  the  back  fence  with  his  neighbor.  His  word  was  ever, 
"Come,  now,  let  us  reason  together  about  this  matter." 

He  respected  the  people  too  much  to  bully  them.  He  respected 
the  people  too  much  to  flatter  them.  There  was  in  him  nothing 
of  the  demagogue.  He  reasoned  with  them  in  serious  fashion 
and  in  confident  expectation  that  the  same  considerations  which 
had  persuaded  his  mind  would  persuade  theirs.  In  that  way  he 
gathered  to  himself  their  consent  and  approval.  On  the  day  that 
he  died  I  suppose  he  was  the  most  absolute  ruler  in  Christendom. 
Never  a  Czar  of  all  the  Russias  had  such  power  over  his  people 
as  Abraham  Lincoln  had  over  the  loyal  people  of  this  land. 

Now,  that  is  leadership  of  the  highest  type.  The  finest  quality 
of  leadership,  whether  it  be  in  ward  politics,  or  in  a  Woman's 
Club,  or  in  a  baseball  nine,  is  not  the  leadership  which  goes  about 
fussy  and  bossy  insisting  constantly  on  having  its  own  way.  It 
is  the  leadership  which  offers  its  suggestions  and  policies  so 
quietly,  unobtrusively,  and  winsomely  that  the  people  accept  them 
and  act  upon  them  without  realizing  that  they  are  being  led. 
They  see  the  whole  matter  so  clearly  that  they  feel  as  if  they 
were  merely  following  the  wise  dictates  of  their  own  judgment. 

His  successful  maintenance  of  this  sympathetic  touch  with  the 
people  was  due,  in  large  measure,  to  these  three  qualities:  his 


ADDRESS  OF  REV.  CHARLES  REYNOLDS  BROWN,  D.D.  339 

integrity,  high  and  holy  enough  for  all  its  tasks,  yet  sufficiently 
simple  to  walk  upon  the  ground!  his  common  sense!  We  call  it 
'^common,"  I  do  not  know  why;  it  is  anything  but  common.  I 
mean  the  plain  straightforward  way  of  looking  at  things  and  of 
saying  things.  When  Lincoln  talked,  the  people  knew  exactly 
what  he  was  driving  at.  They  did  not  have  to  have  an  English 
translation  of  it.  He  never  used  those  long  words  which  would 
not  go  into  a  suitcase  without  being  folded  twice.  He  used  the 
short,  terse,  expressive  words  of  the  King  James  Bible  and  of 
Shakespeare,  the  two  volumes  which  ha  read  most.  He  was  a 
man  of  great  common  sense  And  in  the  third  place,  his  sense 
of  humor,  of  which  he  had  a  very  abundant  store!  It  sometimes 
became  a  source  of  irritation  to  serious-minded  men  like  Seward 
and  Stanton  in  the  stress  of  war  times.  It  was  one  of  the  ways 
in  which  Lincoln  sought  a  momentary  relief  from  the  severe  men- 
tal strain  of  his  high  office. 

There  is  something  about  the  psychology  of  an  average  Ameri- 
can which  warms  up  to  a  combination  like  that.  Give  a  man 
integrity,  common  sense,  and  a  sense  of  humor,  and  he  has  in 
him  the  main  essentials  necessary  for  leadership. 

As  a  leader  of  men  he  moved  slowly,  feeling  his  way  at  times 
rather  than  rushing  ahead  in  pellmell  fashion  after  the  manner 
of  ill-advised  reformers.  He  kept  ahead  of  the  people,  but  not 
too  far  ahead.  His  method  at  this  point  has  been  finely  indicated 
by  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson: 

"Here  was  place  for  no  fair-weather  sailor — the  new 
pilot  was  called  to  the  helm  in  a  tornado.  In  four 
stormy  years  his  endurance,  his  fertility  of  resource, 
his  magnanimity,  were  sorely  tried  and  never  found 
wanting.  By  his  courage,  his  justice,  his  even  temper, 
his  fertile  counsel,  his  humanity,  he  stood  a  heroic  fig- 


340  NATIONAL  REPXTBLICAN   CLUB 

ure  in  the  center  of  a  heroic  epoch.  He  is  the  true  his- 
tory of  the  American  people  in  his  time.  Step  by  step 
he  walked  before  them,  slow  with  their  slowness,  quick- 
ening his  march  by  theirs,  the  true  representative  of 
this  continent,  an  entirely  public  man,  the  father  of  his 
country,  the  pulse  of  twenty  millions  throbbing  in  his 
heart,  the  thought  of  their  minds  articulated  by  his 
tongue." 

The  final  element  in  his  greatness  which  I  would  name  was  his 
political  unselfishness  and  moral  integrity.  He  was  both  great 
and  good.  The  main  issues  with  him  were  the  preservation  of 
the  Union,  the  abolition  of  slavery,  the  welfare  of  the  whole 
American  people,  rather  than  the  success  or  the  fame  or  the  po- 
litical advancement  of  Abraham  Lincoln.  He  desired  not  that 
he  might  save  the  country  but  that  the  country  might  be  saved, 
let  the  credit  for  the  achievement  go  where  it  would. 

He  felt  the  full  sense  of  his  responsibility  in  that  tenure  of 
office.  The  South  had  said  in  1860,  ^'The  election  of  Lincoln 
means  secession."  When  Lincoln  became  President  the  Southern 
States,  according  to  their  threat,  began  to  pass  their  Acts  of  Se- 
cession. Lincoln  must  have  asked  himself:  "Am  I  to  end  the  line 
of  Presidents  of  the  United  States?  If  so,  what  will  be  the  ver- 
dict of  history  upon  me?  Or,  on  the  other  hand,  am  I  to  be  that 
pivotal  man  upon  whose  wisdom  and  strength  may  turn  the  pos- 
sibility of  such  a  Union  as  we  have  never  enjoyed  to  this  hour?" 
It  was  enough  to  make  any  man  self-conscious  and  to  fill  him 
with  an  undue  sense  of  his  own  importance. 

It  was  a  time  of  political  selfishness.  Even  the  gravity  of  the 
situation  did  not  shame  the  petty  ambitions  of  smaller  men. 
When  we  take  up  the  account  of  some  of  the  military  heart- 
burnings and  squabbles  of  that  day  they  make  sorry  reading  for 


ADDRESS  OF  REV.  CHARLES  REYNOLDS  BROWN,  D.D.  341 

a  patriot.  There  were  men  who  seemed  to  be  thinking  more  about 
the  amount  of  gold  on  their  shoulder  straps  than  of  the  service 
they  might  render  in  the  field,  or  the  victories  they  might  win 
for  the  flag.  It  is  a  mood  which  has  not  entirely  passed.  It  only 
required  two  hours  to  fight  the  Battle  of  Santiago  de  Cuba  in  our 
Spanish  War,  but  it  took  more  than  two  years  to  settle  the  ques- 
tion as  to  whom  the  credit  should  be  given,  to  Sampson  or  Schley. 
And  the  question  has  not  been  settled  yet  to  everybody's  satis- 
faction. 

It  was  not  only  in  military  and  in  naval  life,  but  in  political 
action  as  well,  that  men  sometimes  betrayed  the  quality  of  selfish- 
ness. Seward,  Chase,  Stanton,  Gideon  Welles,  and  almost  every 
other  man  of  the  period  seemed  at  times  to  have  his  own  little 
ax  to  grind  whenever  the  public  grindstone  was  not  otherwise 
engaged — and  sometimes,  alas,  when  it  was.  Among  them  all 
Lincoln  bore  himself  steadily  in  the  spirit  of  absolute  disinter- 
estedness. 

Now,  in  closing,  may  I  suggest  a  certain  parallel !  I  do  it  with 
the  utmost  reverence,  and  I  trust,  without  the  slightest  offense 
to  the  religious  sentiments  of  anyone  who  may  read  these  lines. 
I  am  not  instituting  a  comparison,  but  I  would  suggest  a  certain 
parallel  between  the  life  of  the  greatest  man  of  the  Nineteenth 
Century  and  the  life  of  the  Greatest  of  all  the  Centuries,  the  Son 
of  Man. 

Both  were  of  humble  birth.  God  makes  his  great  ones  from  the 
dust  of  the  ground,  breathing  into  their  nostrils  the  breath  of 
his  own  mighty  life  as  they  become  living  souls. 

Lincoln's  birthplace  was  a  log  cabin  and  Jesus  was  born  in 
the  manger  of  a  stable. 

Lincoln's  father  was  a  carpenter  by  trade  and  Jesus  is  referred 
to  in  the  Gospels  as  ''the  son  of  the  carpenter." 


342  NATIONAL   REPUBLICAN   CLUB 

The  words  which  Jesus  used  in  his  opening  address  there  in 
the  synagogue  at  Nazareth  might  have  been  incorporated  bodily 
into  Lincoln's  First  Inaugural.  *'The  spirit  of  the  Lord  is  upon 
me  because  He  has  anointed  me  to  preach  good  tidings  to  the 
poor.  He  has  sent  me  to  bind  up  the  broken-hearted,  to  preach 
deliverance  to  the  captives,  and  to  set  at  liberty  them  that  are 
bruised." 

Both  Lincoln  and  Jesus  were  lovers  and  users  of  the  story,  the 
parable,  the  homely  sayings  which  the  common  people  would  hear 
gladly  and  readily  carry  away  in  their  minds. 

Both  Lincoln  and  Jesus  were  hindered  in  their  work  by  the 
moral  extremists  and  bigots  on  the  one  hand  and  by  the  moral 
dullards  and  slow  of  heart  to  believe  the  good  things  God  had  in 
store  for  the  people,  on  the  other. 

Of  Lincoln's  personal  appearance  it  might  have  been  said  as  it 
was  said  of  the  promised  Messiah:  "There  is  no  form  nor  comeli- 
ness in  him  that  we  should  desire  him." 

The  characteristic  gravity  of  Lincoln's  face  and  the  sadness 
which  sat  upon  him  almost  overpoweringly  during  his  years  in 
the  White  House,  how  it  reminds  us  incessantly  of  the  One  who 
was  called  "A  Man  of  Sorrows  and  acquainted  with  grief." 

And  to  complete  ^hat  significant  parallel,  you  will  all  remem- 
ber that  it  was  on  Good  Eriday,  the  anniversary  of  the  Crucifixion 
of  the  Savior  of  Mankind,  that  Lincoln  met  his  death.  It  would 
seem  as  if  somehow  in  the  Nineteenth  Century  as  in  the  First, 
there  could  be  no  remission  of  the  dreadful  sin  of  slavery  with- 
out the  shedding  of  blood — the  most  precious  blood  we  had. 

What  a  strange  suggestive  parallel!  It  seems  no  accident  that 
the  American  Lincoln  bore  the  Hebrew  name  of  Abraham,  Father 
of  the  Faithful,  in  whose  work  for  righteousness  all  the  nations 
of  the  earth  have  been  blessed.    It  seems  no  accident  that  when 


ADDRESS  OF  REV.  CHARLES  REYNOLDS  BROWN,  D.D.  343 

Lincoln  entered  the  city  of  Richmond  near  the  close  of  his  life, 
as  Jesus  entered  the  city  of  Jerusalem  in  the  last  week  of  his 
earthly  life,  the  colored  people  of  Richmond  were  almost  ready 
to  fall  down  and  hail  him  as  a  kind  of  second  Messiah  to  their 
race.  He  surely  marks  one  of  the  highest  reaches  of  that  Chris- 
tian civilization  which  the  coming  of  the  Son  of  Man  made 
possible. 


THE    THIRTY-SEVENTH 

ANNUAL  LINCOLN  DINNER 

of  the 

NATIONAL  REPUBLICAN  CLUB 

At  the  Waldorf-Astoria 
FEBRUARY  13,  1923 


Address  of 
HON.  IRVINE  L.  LENROOT 


IRVINE   L.  LENROOT 

3om  in  Superior,  Wis.,  January  31,  1869;  admitted 
"to  the  Bar  in  1897;  elected  to  the  Wisconsin  Legis- 
lature in  1900,  1902  and  1904;  elected  Speaker  of  the 
Assembly  in  1903  and  1905;  elected  to  the  61st,  62nd, 
63rd,  64th  and  65th  Congresses.  On  April  2,  1918, 
elected  to  the  Senate  to  fill  the  unexpired  term  of  the 
late  Senator  Husting.  On  November  2,  1920,  re-elected 
for  term  ending  ISIarch  4,  1927. 


ADDRESS   OF 

HON.  IRVINE  L.  LENROOT 


Mr.  President,  ladies  and  gentlemen:  I  was  very  glad  to  accept 
your  invitation  to  be  your  guest  upon  this  day,  celebrated  by  every 
true  American.  In  paying  tribute  to  Lincoln  there  is  no  division 
among  us,  either  geographical  or  partisan,  but  we  who  are  Re- 
publicans are  proud  of  the  fact  that  while  he  belongs  to  all  the 
people  through  all  the  ages,  he  was  of  our  political  faith,  and  in- 
deed has  been  the  inspiration  of  the  Republican  Party,  not  only 
while  he  lived,  but  to  this  day,  in  all  its  worthy  ideals  and 
accomplishments. 

To-day,  more  than  at  any  time  since  Lincoln's  death,  do  we 
need  to  pause  and  study  him.  Of  all  the  great  men  known  to 
history,  he  is  surpassed  by  none.  He  was  great  not  because  of  his 
remarkable  intellectual  ability,  but  because  in  him  there  were 
represented  in  the  fullest  degree  the  qualities,  the  aspirations, 
and  the  patriotism  of  the  great  common  people  of  this  nation  from 
whom  he  sprang.  He  was  honest,  not  only  according  to  ordinary 
standards  of  honesty,  but  he  was  honest  as  measured  by  the  strict- 
est rule  of  integrity  known  to  either  morals  or  religion.  To  his 
sympathy  there  were  no  bounds.  As  for  four  long  years  he  bore  the 
burdens  of  this  Government,  so  he  bore  the  sorrows  of  its  people. 
The  way  before  him  was  often  dark,  difficulties  piled  up  like 
mountain  barriers,  but  with  a  sublime  confidence  in  Him  who  is 


348  NATIONAL   REPUBLICAN   CLUB 

greater  than  armies,  he  was  unafraid.  His  only  desire  was  to 
know  the  right  way  and,  when  satisfied  as  to  that,  nothing  could 
change  him  from  his  course.  His  great  heart  went  out  to  this 
nation.  He  clearly  saw  that  should  the  form  of  government 
founded  by  the  fathers  be  a  failure,  then  indeed  there  was  no 
hope  for  democracy  anywhere. 

Born  in  the  cabin  of  a  pioneer,  reared  amidst  the  rudest  sur- 
roundings, he  became  our  greatest  American  citizen.  His  sim- 
plicity, his  lofty  patriotism,  his  great  mind  and  big  heart  will 
be  an  inspiration  to  all  men  for  all  time.  Lincoln  was  misunder- 
stood and  by  many  unappreciated  during  his  life,  but  now  look- 
ing across  the  span  of  years,  beholding  him  in  his  true  propor- 
tions for  what  he  was,  the  prophecy  of  the  poet  has  been  fulfilled, 
who  said: 

"Great  captains,  with  their  guns  and  drums, 

Disturb  our  judgment  for  the  hour. 
But  at  last  silence  comes, 

These  all  are  gone,  and  standing  like  a  tower, 
Our  children  shall  behold  his  fame. 

The  kindly,  earnest,  brave,  foreseeing  man, 
Sagacious,  patient,  dreading  praise,  not  blame, 

New  birth  of  our  new  soil,  the  first  American." 

Lincoln  lived  and  wrought  through  a  most  critical  period  of 
our  history.  We  are  proud  that  he  was  the  first  Republican 
President  of  the  United  States  and  that  the  principles  he  taught 
and  the  standards  he  created  have  been  the  foundation  principles 
of  the  Republican  Party.  Because  of  his  wisdom  and  his  states- 
manship our  country  not  only  survived  the  shock  of  internal  war, 
but  received  a  new  birth  from  which  has  followed  our  wonderful 
progress. 

Since  then  the  greatest  war  in  history  has  been  waged  and  the 


ADDRESS  OF  HON.  IRVINE  L.  LENROOT  349 

forces  of  right  have  won  the  victory  upon  the  battlefield.  But 
peace  in  Europe  seems  much  farther  off  to-day  than  when  Ger- 
many surrendered.  We  do  not  know  what  the  morrow  may  bring 
forth,  whether  peace  will  come,  or  whether  Europe  is  upon  the 
verge  of  another  war,  a  war  which  will  leave  nothing  but  ruin 
and  disaster  for  all  who  participate  in  it.  Time  alone  will  tell. 
But  this  we  know — that  the  statesmen  of  Europe,  victors  and 
vanquished  are  not  dominated  by  the  spirit  that  Lincoln  had. 
We  can  all  sympathize  with  France,  with  so  much  of  her  fair 
territory  devastated,  with  her  millions  of  brave  men  lying  be- 
neath the  sod,  with  her  fear  of  a  future  Germany  with  military 
strength  renewing  the  contest.  We  can  sympathize  with  the 
German  people  too  who  feel  that  the  reparation  terms  are  greater 
than  they  can  bear,  that  nothing  but  economic  ruin  faces  them. 
But  it  is  unfortunate  that  Germany  has  not  seen  fit  to  do  her 
utmost  to  pay  her  obligations,  to  maintain  the  value  of  her  cur- 
rency, and  then  rely  upon  the  sympathy  and  the  help  of  the 
world  to  secure  for  her  such  terms  as  would  enable  her  to  resume 
an  economic  place  in  the  world,  but  without  any  possibility  of  a 
return  to  military  power.  All  of  the  nations  of  Europe  are  in- 
sisting that  they  are  awaiting  the  voice  of  America  to  save  them, 
and  we  are  given  to  understand  that  we  are  lacking  in  our  duty 
to  civilization  in  holding  aloof.  But  the  truth  is  that  most  of 
them  hope  that  the  voice  of  America  shall  be  raised  in  their  be- 
half, to  assist  them  to  accomplish  their  particular  aims  and  pur- 
poses, selfish  though  they  may  be.  I  wish  there  could  be  a  har- 
monious voice  in  America  in  this  European  crisis.  But  we  should 
frankly  face  the  fact  that  there  is  not,  and  will  not  be,  in  favor 
of  any  of  the  nations  of  Europe  so  long  as  they  pursue  their 
present  policies.  However,  it  ought  to  be  possible  for  all  of 
America  to  unite  in  a  voice  so  strong  as  to  be  heard  across  the 


350  NATIONAL   REPUBLICAN   CLUB 

sea,  declaring  that  no  help  will  come  from  ns  to  assist  any  nation 
in  evading  its  just  obligations  upon  the  one  hand,  or  assisting 
any  nation  in  crushing  or  exploiting  any  people  upon  the  other. 
There  is  but  one  way  to  peace  in  Europe.  Germany  must  pay  to 
the  utmost  of  her  ability  to  pay  and  yet  live  and  occupy  a  place 
in  the  family  of  nations.  France  must  not  seek  to  crush  the 
German  people,  nor  must  she  or  England  or  Italy  exploit  weaker 
peoples  for  selfish  advantage  and  Imperial  domination.  Above  all, 
hatred  between  the  different  nations  must  not  be  fostered  nor 
passions  kindled,  but  friendship  and  goodwill  must  Be  the  aim 
of  all. 

Europe  needs  the  charity  of  Lincoln,  but  it  also  needs  his 
sternness  against  wrong  by  whomsoever  committed.  Would  that 
every  man  and  woman  in  Europe  to-night  could  read  and  apply 
those  immortal  words  of  Lincoln,  ''With  malice  toward  none,  with 
charity  for  all,  with  firmness  in  the  right  as  God  gives  us  to  see 
the  right,  let  us  strive  on  to  finish  the  work  we  are  in,  to  bind 
up  the  nation's  wounds,  to  care  for  him  who  shall  have  borne 
the  batle,  and  for  his  widow  and  his  orphans  to  do  all  which 
may  achieve  and  cherish  a  just  and  lasting  peace  among  our- 
selves, and  with  all  nations."  I  hope  the  time  is  near  at  hand 
when  America's  voice  for  peace  and  justice  to  all  of  Europe  will 
be  welcome  and  heard,  and  heeded.  We  know  that  whenever 
that  opportunity  arrives  President  Harding  and  Secretary  Hughes 
will  not  only  be  willing  but  eager  to  give  expression  to  it,  but  I 
am  not  in  favor  of  the  United  States  Senate  deciding  the  time 
when  action  shall  be  taken,  or  building  up  false  hopes  in  an^ 
nation  of  Europe  that  the  United  States  is  ready  to  help  it  as 
against  others,  regardless  of  justice  and  right. 

It  should  be  clearly  understood  too  that  the  United  States  has 
not  a  dollar  to  help  any  nation  to  maintain  huge  standing  armies 


ADDRESS  OF  HON.  IRVINE  L.  LENROOT  351 

or  to  enable  them  to  assist  one  nation  in  fighting  another.  A  few 
months  ago  we  were  given  to  understand  that  England  was  finan- 
cing Greece  to  fight  Turkey  and  France  was  financing  Turkey 
to  fight  Greece. 

But  I  have  faith  that  reason  will  soon  prevail  in  Europe,  that 
just  settlements  will  be  proposed  both  upon  the  part  of  Germany 
and  upon  the  part  of  France,  and  among  all  other  nations  where 
dissensions  exist.  When  reason  does  return,  then  the  voice  of 
America  should  be  heard.  We  should  not  remain  aloof.  We 
must  not  isolate  ourselves  from  the  rest  of  the  world,  but  realize 
that  we  are  part  of  it  and  have  a  responsibility  to  it.  This  we 
can  do  without  any  surrender  of  our  sovereignty  or  independence. 
We  shall  never  surrender  to  any  League  or  Association  of  Na- 
tions the  right  to  determine  for  us  when  and  how  and  where  we 
shall  engage  in  war.  No  American  boy  shall  ever  be  sent  to  fight 
and  die  anywhere  except  with  the  voluntary  action  of  his  own 
Government. 

But,  important  as  the  European  crisis  is  to  us,  both  from  a 
humanitarian  standpoint,  and  from  the  standpoint  of  our  own 
vital  interests,  we  should  remember  that  our  first  duty  is  to 
make  civilization  safe  in  America. 

There  is  unrest  and  discontent  among  us.  Business  is  halting 
and  uncertain,  and  everyone  is  trying  to  blame  someone  else  for 
the  condition  in  which  we  find  ourselves.  But  the  Government, 
whether  Republican  or  Democratic,  is  usually  held  responsible 
for  everything  that  does  not  suit  us.  Now  Government  is  to 
blame  for  some  things.  It  has  some  sins  of  commission,  but 
more  of  omission.  It  has  done  some  things  it  should  not  have 
done  and  left  undone  some  things  which  should  have  been  done, 
but  there  are  also  economic  laws  of  trade,  of  supply  and  demand, 
that  no  legislation  can  violate  any  more  than  we  might  prevent 


352  NATIONAL   REPUBLICAN   CLUB 

the  tides  of  the  Atlantic  Ocean  by  passing  a  law  that  the  tide 
should  not  rise  to-day.  One  of  the  causes  of  unrest  and  discon- 
tent is  that  while  more  than  four  million  of  our  boys  were  called 
to  the  colors,  and  two  million  of  them  reached  France  while 
other  people  toiled  and  sacrificed  time  and  money,  there  were  yet 
others  who  made  huge  fortunes  out  of  the  war.  This  will  al- 
ways be  a  blot  upon  us.  Whenever  we  are  engaged  in  war  there 
should  be  to  the  fullest  extent  possible  equality  of  sacrifice.  No 
man  should  profit  by  it.  What  kind  of  patriotism  is  it,  that 
sends  some  of  our  boys  to  die  and  pays  out  unconscionable  profits 
to  others  who  stay  at  home?  Should  war  ever  again  come  upon 
us,  I  hope  that  the  draft  will  be  applied  not  only  to  those  who 
wear  the  uniform  of  a  soldier,  but  to  every  industry  to  the  end 
that  never  again  shall  there  be  war  profits  to  either  the  man 
who  owns  our  factories  or  to  the  men  who  work  in  them. 

We  are  menaced  to-day  by  two  dangers — those  who,  possessing 
economic  power,  use  it  to  oppress  others,  securing  unconscionable 
profits  for  themselves,  sometimes  through  grants  of  special  priv- 
ileges by  Government,  State  or  National,  and  others  who  would 
tear  down  all  that  has  been  builded  in  one  hundred  and  forty-six 
years  of  progress. 

No  man  can  be  a  good  citizen  who  would  follow  the  simple 
plan  that: 

'^They  shall  take  who  have  the  power, 
And  they  shall  keep  who  can." 

and  no  man  can  be  a  good  citizen  who  denounces  everything  that 
is,  the  good  with  the  bad. 

Equality  of  opportunity  is  what  has  made  our  nation  favored 
above  all  other  lands.     It  must  be  preserved  if  the  Republic  is 


ADDRESS  OF  HON.  IRVINE  L.  LENROOT  353 

to  endure,  but  equality  of  opportunity  will  be  of  little  value  un- 
less we  also  protect  the  rewards  of  industry  and  perseverance. 

We  have  with  us  to-day  perhaps  more  than  ever  before  the 
demagogue  who  denounces  every  man  who  has  acquired  property, 
however  honestly,  and  he  is  the  enemy  of  the  Republic  equally 
with  what  are  termed  the  predatory  interests.  He  seizes  upon 
every  grievance,  fancied  or  real,  and  capitalizes  it  for  his  own 
political  profit.  He  does  not  desire  to  better  the  class  to  whom 
he  appeals — indeed  he  desires  their  condition  shall  become  worse 
instead  of  better,  for  discontent  and  unrest  are  the  bread  of  life 
to  him,  and  a  happy  and  contented  people  would  leave  him  with- 
out any  occupation. 

But  merely  denouncing  the  demagogue  and  malefactor  of 
wealth  gets  us  nowhere.  We  must  do  what  we  can,  based  upon 
sound  business  principles,  to  relieve  existing  conditions.  We 
must  get  the  facts  before  the  people  as  to  the  cause  of  our  troubles 
and  convince  them  that  while  there  are  some  things  that  the  Gov- 
ernment can  do  for  them,  there  is  no  magic  of  legislation  that 
can  bring  prosperity  to  our  people.  Above  all,  we  must  avoid 
group  or  class  distinction  in  dealing  with  our  problems. 

This  seems  to  be  the  day  of  blocs,  each  thinking  too  largely  in 
terms  of  selfish  advantage  for  its  own  bloc,  with  too  little  con- 
sideration for  the  rights  of  others.  In  the  solution  of  our  prob- 
lems there  must  be  no  North,  no  South,  no  East,  no  West,  but  we 
must  encompass  within  our  vision  our  entire  country  from  the 
Atlantic  to  the  Pacific,  from  the  Canadian  border  to  the  Gulf, 
and  we  must  legislate  for  the  welfare  of  all  the  people.  Blocs 
are  not  new  in  Congress  and  I  confess  I  have  not  much  sympathy 
for  some  who  are  denouncing  them.  I  have  been  in  Congress 
fourteen  years  and  there  have  always  seen  blocs  there,  though 
not  carrying  that  name,  nor  visible  to  the  eye.    We  always  have 


354  NATIONAL   REPUBLICAN   CLUB 

had  tariii'  blocs,  manufacturers'  blocs  and  other  blocs,  each  seek- 
ing advantage  for  itself.  Now  that  other  groups  have  formed 
blocs  is  not  surprising,  for  good  may  come  out  of  it  all  if  there 
shall  be  created  in  the  public  mind  the  determination  that  selfish 
advantage  and  special  privilege  to  the  public  injury  must  be 
abolished  for  all  time.  I  believe  this  is  coming  and  there  is  a 
growing  realization  that  we  must  seek  for  general  prosperity  for 
all  our  people  and  not  for  any  particular  group  or  class.  Blocs 
are  not  in  themselves  an  evil,  but  they  become  so  whenever  they 
seek  special  privilege  against  the  public  interest. 

We  must  more  fully  Americanize  America.  This  is  said  to  be 
the  melting  pot  of  nations.  Anyone  who  comes  here  from  other 
lands  who  is  not  willing  to  be  melted  into  a  good  American  cit- 
izen should  not  be  permitted  to  remain.  There  must  be  no  little 
Germany,  no  little  Italy,  and  no  other  little  nationality  here,  but 
just  one  America.  We  should  make  it  clear  to  every  immigrant 
that  his  entry  here  is  a  privilege  and  not  a  right.  That  for  that 
privilege  he  must  not  only  obey  our  laws  but  cheerfully  support 
them.  That  he  must  learn  our  language  and  become  acquainted 
with  our  institutions.  That  until  he  acquires  the  status  of  citi- 
zenship, it  is  not  for  him  to  criticise  our  Government  or  advocate 
a  change  in  its  laws.  We  should  say  to  him  that  to  citizens  of 
America  belongs  the  right  and  privilege  of  government  and  that 
until  he  is  naturalized  if  he  does  not  like  our  government  as  it 
is,  and  advocates  tearing  it  down,  he  had  better  go  back  to  the 
land  from  whence  he  came  or  we  will  send  him  there. 

Never  has  there  been  greater  need  for  patriotic  party  and  in- 
dividual service  than  now,  in  the  solution  of  our  many  problems. 
Shall  our  party  maintain  the  high  ideals  and  purposes  which  Lin- 
coln gave  to  it?  Shall  its  party  platforms  speak  the  voice  of  its 
thoughtful  men  and  women  who  seek  nothing  but  the  general 


ADDRESS  OF  HON.   IRVINE  L.  LENROOT  355 

good?  Shall  it  continue  to  be  a  worthy  instrument  of  service 
to  the  American  people,  preferring  to  go  down  to  defeat,  fight- 
ing for  principles  which  it  espouses,  than  win  without  having 
any?  Shall  we  seek  to  succeed  upon  the  strength  of  our  own 
cause  or  merely  upon  the  weakness  of  our  opponents? 

The  achievements  of  President  Harding  in  the  Limitation  of 
Armament  Conference,  in  economy  in  government  expenditures, 
in  reducing  taxes,  in  improving  the  distressed  condition  of  our 
farmers,  in  settling  the  British  debt,  should  be  pointed  to  by 
every  Republican  with  pride.  But  we  must  not  rely  upon  what 
the  Republican  Party  has  done.  Every  citizen  has  the  right  to 
ask  what  are  the  principles  of  any  political  party  that  abide  not 
only  for  a  single  campaign,  but  serve  as  a  compass  and  guide  to 
all  its  endeavors. 

We  Republicans  may  answer  that  our  Party  has  always  stood 
for  the  rights  of  the  individual,  for  equal  opportunity  for  all. 
We  believe  in  a  central  government,  strong  enough  to  secure  pro- 
tection for  the  enjoyment  of  human  rights,  but  beyond  that 
point  the  rights  of  the  State  must  be  respected. 

Has  not  the  time  come  for  a  general  declaration  of  Republican 
principles,  to  be  applied  to  every  problem,  foreign  and  domestic, 
that  concerns  us?  Should  we  not  make  it  plain  that  our  Party 
stands  first  and  always  for  service,  first  to  our  own  people,  and 
second  to  the  world? 

No  Party  has  any  right  to  live  except  as  it  seeks  to  make  of 
America  a  better  place  to  live  for  every  man  and  woman  in  it. 
Service  affording  equal  opportunity,  striving  always  so  to  legis- 
late and  govern  that  every  citizen  shall  have  the  chance  to  make 
a  success  in  life,  and  if  failure  comes  he  alone  will  be  to  blame, 
should  be  our  aim.    Should  we  not  apply  to  every  problem  that 


356  NATIONAL   REPUBLICAN   CLUB 

comes  before  us  this  question:  How  can  it  be  solved  to  best  serve 
the  whole  American  people? 

When  we  find  unrest  and  discontent  shall  we  be  content  to  de- 
nounce demagogues  who  take  advantage  of  it,  or  shall  we  diag- 
nose the  cause  of  the  discontent  and  try  to  find  a  remedy?  When 
we  find  some  special  privilege  existing  to  the  public  injury,  shall 
we  shut  our  eyes  to  it,  or  shall  we  remove  it  when  we  have  the 
power?  Shall  we  denounce  all  organizations  of  labor  and  de- 
fend all  organizations  of  capital? 

The  Republican  Party  should  be  the  friend  of  all  men  and 
women  in  every  walk  of  life  who  seek  nothing  from  their  Gov- 
arnment,  except  their  just  rights,  and  desire  only  the  general 
welfare.  Is  it  not  possible  to  have  a  general  declaration  of  prin- 
ciples of  the  Republican  Party  that  will  be  its  guide  to-day,  to- 
morrow and  in  all  the  years  to  come?  Principles  that  will  not 
only  be  declared  but  adhered  to  so  that  all  may  know  that  we 
are  trying  to  make  of  America  a  better  place  for  all  of  its 
people? 

But,  you  may  ask,  how  shall  we  determine  upon  principles  ex- 
cept in  the  ordinary  way  at  national  conventions?  My  answer 
is,  that  we  must  first  have  a  sentiment  within  the  party  that 
shall  govern  and  control  our  party  convention.  It  is  not  my  pur- 
pose to  attempt  to  indicate  any  formula  that  might  be  agreed 
upon,  but  we  could  well  start  with  the  proposition  that  the  Re- 
publican Party  must  stand  for  the  protection  of  every  legitimate 
right  of  every  human  being  in  America,  laboring  man,  capitalist, 
farmer,  whatever  his  vocation  in  life  may  be,  and  equal  oppor- 
tunity for  each  man  and  woman  to  make  the  most  of  his  life. 
Then  there  ought  to  be  patriotic  men  and  women  of  every  walk 
of  life  within  our  party,  having  no  selfish  interest  to  serve,  who 


ADDRESS  OF  HON.  IRVINE  L.  LENROOT  357 

would  be  willing  to  discuss  with  each  other  matters  of  concern 
to  the  country,  and  surely  upon  many  matters  at  least  they  could 
find  common  ground  upon  which  they  all  could  stand. 

I  believe  that  the  overwhelming  majority  of  our  laboring  men, 
our  farmers  and  our  business  and  professional  men  desire  only 
the  common  good,  that  the  Government  shall  serve  only  the  gen- 
eral welfare,  and  that  they  would  be  much  more  interested  in 
having  their  party  stand  for  definite  principles  which  shall  con- 
trol the  candidates,  than  they  are  in  candidates  who  shall  de- 
clare their  own  principles.  In  other  words,  I  suggest  a  return 
to  responsible  party  government,  which  can  be  secured  only  if 
our  party  has  definite  aims  and  purposes  supported  by  its  mem- 
bership and  to  which  its  candidates  must  adhere  if  they  would 
remain  within  the  party. 

I  can  think  of  no  better  occasion  than  this,  while  our  thoughts 
are  full  of  Lincoln,  and  his  greatness  and  his  service,  to  suggest 
to  this  organization  that  it  has  the  opportunity  to  create  a  senti- 
ment for  a  declaration  of  principles  in  the  next  convention,  that 
shall  represent  the  best  thought  of  the  most  patriotic  men  and 
women  in  our  party,  who  will,  in  suggesting  them,  give  less  heed 
to  winning  an  election  and  more  heed  to  our  party,  courageously 
meeting  our  problems  and  standing  for  the  welfare  of  all  America. 

I  have  an  abiding  confidence  in  the  future  of  America  because 
I  have  an  abiding  confidence  in  the  judgment  and  the  patriotism 
of  the  American  people.  They  may  suffer  injustice  for  a  time, 
they  may  be  led  astray  sometimes  by  false  leaders,  but  they  will 
never  permanently  depart  from  the  principles  upon  which  this 
government  was  established  under  Washington,  preserved  under 
Lincoln,  and  carried  across  the  sea  by  our  boys  who  fought  upon 
the  battlefields  of  France. 


358  NATIONAL   REPUBLICAN   CLUB 

May  the  Eepublican  Party  be  the  instrumentality  of  greatest 
service  to  the  American  people,  and  may  that  be  the  highest 
ambition  of  our  party.  May  Lincoln  ever  continue  to  be  its  chief 
inspiration,  and  may  its  future  be  even  more  glorious  than  its 
past.  • 


THE   THIRTY-EIGHTH 

ANNUAL   LINCOLN   DINNER 

of  the 

NATIONAL  REPUBLICAN   CLUB 

At  the  Waldorf-Astoria 

FEBRUARY  12,  1924 


Addresses  of 
HON.  NATHANIEL  A.   ELSBERG 

MRS.  AUGUST  BELMONT 
HON.   JAMES  W.    WADSWORTH 
PRESIDENT  CALVIN  COOLIDGE 


NATHANIEL  A.  ELSBERG 

Pormer  State  Senator  from  New  York  City.  Presi- 
dent of  tlie  National  Republican  Club.  Distinguished 
jurist  and  orator. 


ADDRESS    OF 


INATHANIEL  A.  ELSBERG 

President  of  the  Club 


Mr.  President,  members  of  the  National  Republican  Club,  ladies 
and  gentlemen:  For  thirty-eight  successive  years  the  members  of 
the  National  Republican  Club  have  gathered  with  their  guests 
to  pay  tribute  to  the  memory  of  Abraham  Lincoln  on  the  anni- 
versary of  his  birth.  At  several  of  these  gatherings  we  have 
been  signally  honored,  as  we  are  to-night,  by  the  presence  of  the 
President  of  the  United  States  —  indeed  to-night  the  honor  is 
doubled  by  the  attendance  of  the  gracious  lady  who  is  the  First 
Lady  of  the  Land — and  at  all  of  them  we  have  had  interpreted 
for  us  the  Lincoln  spirit  and  the  lessons  of  Lincoln's  life  in  the 
terms  of  their  application  to  the  problems  of  the  current  day. 
The  picture  changes,  and  it  should  change,  for  when  community 
life  becomes  static  rather  than  dynamic  it  is  very  near  decay; 
but  the  triumphs  of  the  human  spirit  endure,  and  light  the  back- 
ground of  the  changing  picture  with  a  radiance  that  is  all  their 
own.  That  history  is  philosophy  teaching  by  example,  may  or 
may  not  be  correct  as  a  definition,  but  certain  it  is  that  its  su- 
preme honors  have  been  reserved  for  the  immortal  few  who  in 
the  examples  of  their  lives  and  purposes  and  sacrifices  have  fur- 
nished the  spiritual  stepping  stones  on  which  the  race  has  climbed 
to  higher  things.  It  is  the  recognition  of  this,  which,  as  the  years 
roll  on,  is  steadily  increasing  the  majesty  of  Lincoln's  stature 


NATIONAL   REPUBLICAN   CLUB 


and  the  magic  of  his  name.  It  is  this  which  makes  the  lessons 
of  his  life  of  never-ending  application  as  we  seek  solutions  for 
the  problems  of  our  own  times.  And  it  is  this  which,  as  one 
stands  in  that  noble  building,  the  Lincoln  Memorial  in  Washing- 
ton, and  regards  his  statue — in  which,  more  than  in  any  other 
statue  I  have  ever  seen,  the  sculptor  has  succeeded  in  putting  a 
soul  into  marble — it  is  this  which  gives  one  that  swelling  of  the 
heart  and  quickening  of  the  conscience  which  only  the  thought 
of  the  greatest  spiritual  leaders  can  evoke. 

For  one  must  look  beyond  the  things  which  he  accomplished 
to  find  the  explanation  of  the  influence  of  Lincoln  on  the  thought 
and  feeling  of  the  world.  To  save  a  nation  and  consecrate  it 
anew  to  liberty  under  law,  great  achievement  though  it  was,  was 
not  enough  to  make  of  him  the  towering  figure  which  he  has 
become.  Eather  is  the  explanation  furnished  by  the  soul,  the 
spirit,  by  which  the  achievement  was  informed  and  the  appeal  of 
which  to  the  best  and  highest  impulses  of  men  and  women  every- 
where no  artificial  boundaries  of  race  or  creed  or  nationality  or 
geography  can  take  away.  And  that  is  why,  if  there  be  in  any 
spot  on  earth  a  movement  to  uplift  the  weak  or  succor  the  op- 
pressed, to  give  to  peoples  broader  rights,  to  trample  out  the 
weeds  of  cruelty  and  wrong,  it  never  fails  to  draw  both  strength 
and  inspiration  from  the  spirit  which  in  life  abode  in  Lincoln's 
homely  form  and  now  has  its  eternal  dwelling  among  the  stars. 
So  deeply — more  so  perhaps  than  in  any  other  case  in  profane 
history — ^has  the  unadorned  worth  of  a  human  soul  impressed  it- 
self on  the  heart  and  the  imagination  of  mankind. 

Do  not  fear  that  I  shall  usurp  the  prerogatives  of  the  speakers 
of  the  evening.  I  know  that  the  most  becoming  quality  in  a 
presiding  officer  is  that  gift  for  silence  which  has  been  so  widely 


ADDRESS  OF  HON.  NATHANIEL  A.  ELSBERG  363 

heralded  as  a  characteristic  of  our  guest  of  honor,  but  which — 
may  I  add — in  his  case  yields  to  the  superb  gift  of  using  speech, 
not,  as  Voltaire  said,  to  disguise  thoughts,  but  to  let  his  hearers 
know  exactly  what  he  thinks  and  where  he  stands.  I  should  and 
shall  be  brief.  And  yet  I  feel  that  I  would  not  faithfully  trans- 
late your  wishes  into  words,  if  I  failed  to  express  to  our  guest 
of  honor  something  of  the  welcome  with  which  we  greet  him 
here  to-night,  something  of  the  regard  and  loyalty  we  have  for 
him,  something  of  our  appreciation  that  he  has  come  here  and 
will  speak  to  us  this  evening. 

Six  times  in  our  history,  fate  has  called  the  Vice-President  to 
serve  as  President  of  the  United  States,  and  it  was  but  natural 
that  on  each  occasion  the  Nation's  sorrow  for  its  fallen  leader 
was  mingled  with  anxiety  as  to  what  the  future  had  in  store. 
Three  of  those  occasions  happened  in  the  lifetime  of  most  of  the 
men  and  women  in  this  audience,  and  from  our  contemporary 
experience  as  to  them,  and  from  what  we  have  read  about  the 
three  occasions  that  preceded  them,  we  know  the  circumstances 
which  in  each  case  attended  the  induction  into  office  of  the  suc- 
cessor designated  by  the  Constitution.  Varying  have  been  those 
circumstances,  but  surely  none  had  in  them  a  more  intense  appeal 
to  patriotic  feeling  than  the  midnight  scene  in  a  farmhouse  in 
Vermont — in  surroundings  no  different  from  those  of  millions  of 
other  modest  American  homes — where  a  father,  in  the  fullness 
of  his  own  honored  years,  had  the  unexampled  privilege  of  ad- 
ministering to  his  son  the  oath  of  office  as  President  of  the  United 
States.  The  thrill  which  the  story  of  that  scene  brought  to 
countless  American  hearts  was  due,  not  so  much  to  the  stirring 
of  our  sense  of  the  dramatic,  as  to  our  realization  of  the  fact  that 
this  indeed  was  typical  of  America — the  America  of  our  hopes 
and  of  the  ideals  of  its  founders,  the  America  which  in  the  beau- 


364  NATIONAL   REPUBLICAN   CLUB 

tiful  words  of  Lowell  in  his  essay  on  Lincoln,  has  shown  us  once 
more  how  much  of  truth,  how  much  of  statecraft,  await  the  call 
of  opportunity  in  simple  manhood  when  it  believes  in  the  justice, 
of  God  and  the  worth  of  man. 

And  so  it  was  that  when  in  the  gloom  of  the  trying  hours 
which  followed  President  Harding's  death,  we  turned  our  faces 
to  New  England,  with  the  age-old  question  on  our  lips,  "Watch- 
man, what  of  the  night?" — we  received  our  answer  in  the  sim- 
plicity and  dignity  of  that  unprecedented  little  family  gathering, 
the  answer  that  **the  morning  cometh,"  inspiring  us  anew  with 
the  evidence  it  gave,  and  revivifying  our  American  faith,  that 
whatever  the  blows  or  vicissitudes  of  fate,  God  reigns,  and  the 
Government  at  Washington  will  continue  to  live.  And  the  justi- 
fication for  that  faith  is  fortified  afresh  by  the  restraint  and 
calmness  under  stress,  by  the  fine  balance  between  respect  for 
public  opinion  on  the  one  hand  and  contempt  for  unworthy 
partisan  clamor  on  the  other,  and  by  the  undeviating  purpose  to 
protect  the  integrity  of  this  Government  against  assaults  from 
either  within  or  without  the  ranks  of  his  own  party,  which  his 
countrymen  hail  as  qualities  of  him  who  occupies  the  White 
House. 

Ladies  and  gentlemen,  the  President  of  the  United  States. 


MRS.  ATJGTTST  BELMONT 
Prominent  in  social  and  philanthropic  work. 


ADDRESS   OF 

MRS.  AUGUST  BELMONT 


Mr.  President:  On  the  morning  of  November  18,  1863,  a  spe- 
cial train  drew  out  from  Washington,  carrying  a  distinguished 
company.  The  presence  with  them  of  the  Marine  Band  from  the 
Navy  Yard  spoke  a  public  occasion  to  come,  and  among  the 
travellers  there  were  those  who  might  be  gathered  only  for  an 
occasion  of  importance.  There  were  Judges  of  the  Supreme 
Court  of  the  United  States;  there  were  heads  of  departments; 
the  General-in-Chief  of  the  Army  and  his  staff;  members  of  the 
Cabinet.  In  their  midst,  as  they  stood  about  the  car  before  set- 
tling for  the  journey,  was  a  man  sad,  preoccupied,  unassuming. 
Abraham  Lincoln,  President  of  the  United  States,  journeyed  with 
his  party  to  assist  at  the  consecration  of  the  National  Cemetery 
at  Gettysburg. 

At  eleven  o'clock  on  the  morning  of  the  day  following,  on 
November  19,  1863,  a  vast  silent  multitude  billowed,  like  waves 
of  the  sea,  over  what  had  been  not  long  before  the  Battlefield  of 
Gettysburg. 

There  were  wounded  soldiers  there  who  had  beaten  their  way 
four  months  before  through  a  singing  fire  across  these  quiet  fields, 
who  had  seen  the  men  die  who  were  buried  there;  there  were 
troops,  grave  and  responsible,  who  must  soon  go  again  into  battle ; 
there  were  the  rank  and  file  of  an  everyday  American  gathering 


368  NATIONAL   REPUBLICAN   CLUB 

in  surging  thousands;  and  above  them  all,  on  the  open  air  plat- 
form, there  were  the  leaders  of  the  land,  the  pilots  who  to-day 
lifted  a  hand  from  the  wheel  of  the  Ship  of  State  to  salute  the 
memory  of  those  gone  down  in  the  storm. 

At  last,  as  the  orator  of  the  day  finished  speaking  and  took 
his  seat,  a  tall,  gaunt  figure  detached  itself  from  the  group  on 
the  platform  and  slouched  quietly  across  the  open  space  and  stood 
facing  the  audience. 

A  stir  and  a  whisper  brushed  over  the  field  of  humanity,  as  if 
a  breeze  had  rippled  a  monstrous  bed  of  poppies.  This  was  the 
President.  A  quivering  silence  settled  down  and  every  eye  was 
wide  to  watch  this  strange,  disappointing  appearance,  every  ear 
alert  to  catch  the  first  sound  of  his  voice.  People  stopped  breath- 
ing, as  if  they  feared  to  miss  an  inflection.  A  loose-hung  figure, 
six  feet  four  inches  high,  he  towered  above  them;  a  man  awk- 
ward and  ill-dressed;  a  man  of  no  grace  of  looks  or  manner,  in 
whose  haggard  face  seemed  to  be  the  suffering  for  the  sins  of 
the  world.  That  these  were  his  people  was  his  only  thought. 
He  had  something  to  say  to  them: 

* 'Fourscore  and  seven  years  ago  our  fathers  brought  forth  on 
this  Continent  a  new  Nation,  conceived  in  liberty,  and  dedicated 
to  the  proposition  that  all  men  are  created  equal.  Now  we  are 
engaged  in  a  great  civil  war,  testing  whether  that  Nation,  or  any 
Nation  so  conceived  and  so  dedicated,  can  long  endure.  We  are 
met  on  a  great  battlefield  of  that  war.  We  have  come  to  dedicate 
a  portion  of  that  field  as  a  final  resting  place  for  those  who  here 
gave  their  lives  that  that  Nation  might  live.  It  is  altogether 
fitting  and  proper  that  we  should  do  this.  But,  in  a  larger  sense, 
we  cannot  dedicate,  we  cannot  consecrate,  we  cannot  hallow  this 
ground.  The  brave  men,  living  and  dead,  who  struggled  here 
have  consecrated  it  far  above  our  poor  power  to  add  or  to  detract 


ADDRESS  OF  MRS.  AUGUST  BELMONT  369 

The  world  will  little  note  nor  long  remember  what  we  say  here, 
but  it  can  never  forget  what  they  did  here.  It  is  for  us,  the 
living,  rather  to  be  dedicated  here  to  the  unfinished  work  which 
they  who  fought  here  have  thus  far  so  nobly  advanced.  It  is 
rather  for  us  to  be  here  dedicated  to  the  great  task  remaining 
before  us — that  from  these  honored  dead  we  take  increased  de- 
votion to  that  cause  for  which  they  gave  the  last  full  measure 
of  devotion — that  we  here  highly  resolve  that  these  dead  shall 
not  have  died  in  vain,  that  this  Nation  under  God  shall  have  a 
new  birth  of  freedom,  and  that  government  of  the  people,  by  the 
people,  for  the  people,  shall  not  perish  from  the  earth." 


JAMES  W.  WADSWORTH,   JR. 

IS.  S.  Senator  from  New  York.  Born  at  Geneseo,  N. 
Y.,  August  12,  1877;  received  preparatory  education 
at  St.  Mark's  School  at  Southboro,  Mass.;  graduated 
from  Yale  1898;  enlisted  as  private  Battery  A,  Penn- 
sylvania Field  Artillery,  and  served  with  that  organi- 
zation in  the  Porto  Rican  campaign  in  the  summer 
of  1898;  mustered  out  at  Philadelphia  at  the  close  of 
the  war.  Returning  home,  he  engaged  in  livestock 
and  general  farming  business  near  Geneseo,  N.  Y., 
and  later  assumed  the  management  of  a  ranch  in  the 
Panhandle  of  Texas;  married  Miss  Alice  Hay,  of 
Washington,  D.  C,  1902;  elected  Member  of  Assembly 
from  Livingston  County  1904,  and  re-elected  1905, 
1906,  1907,  1908  and  1909;  elected  Speaker  of  Assem- 
bly for  the  session  of  1906,  and  re-elected  for  the 
sessions  of  1907,  1908,  1909  and  1910;  elected  United 
States  Senator  for  the  State  of  New  York  November 
3,  1914,  defeating  James  W.  Gerard,  Democrat,  and 
Bainbridge  Colby,  Progressive.  Re-elected  November 
2,  1920,  defeating  his  Democratic  opponent,  Hon. 
W.  Walker,  by  more  than  50,000  plurality.  His  term 
expired  March  3,  1927. 


ADDRESS    OF 

HON.  JAMES  W.  WADSWORTH 


Mr.  President,  Mr.  Chairman,  fellow  members  of  the  National 
Bepublican  Club,  ladies  and  gentlemen:  A  few  moments  ago  we 
listened  to  a  splendid  reading  of  those  beautiful  words  of  Abra- 
ham Lincoln,  delivered  at  Gettysburg.  How  refreshing  is  their 
simplicity!  And  when  we  remember  some  of  the  circumstances 
surrounding  that  event,  our  reverence  for  the  author  of  those 
sentences  must  needs  be  increased,  if  indeed  that  is  possible. 
The  words  were  scribbled  on  a  very  ordinary  piece  of  paper,  as 
Mr.  Lincoln  sat  in  the  train  on  the  way  from  Washington  to 
Gettysburg  that  day.  His  own  modesty — and  perhaps  it  was  a 
mixture  of  modesty  and  sincerity — led  him  to  think  little  of 
them.  Indeed,  he  was  on  the  point  of  throwing  away  the  paper 
upon  which  the  words  were  written,  when  his  secretary  picked 
it  up  and  kept  it.  And  to  the  other  orator  of  the  day  Mr.  Lin- 
coln expressed  his  doubt  as  to  whether  he  had  properly  voiced 
the  sentiments  which  should  accompany  such  an  occasion.  It 
was,  indeed,  the  simplicity  of  his  words,  as  well  as  their  beauty, 
which  gave  them  life  and  uplifted  a  nation.  How  well  it  would 
be  if  that  same  simplicity  of  utterance  and  of  living,  if  you 
please,  might  prevail  far  and  wide  over  this  land  to-day.  There 
is  nothing  mysterious  in  the  human  truths  upon  which  our  great 
government  is  founded.  Our  trouble  has  been  to  express  those 
truths  from  time  to  time  in  language  which  people  can  under- 
stand. Occasionally,  we  are  blest  with  such  utterances,  and  the 
speech  at  Gettysburg  was  one  of  them. 


372  NATIONAL  REPUBLICAN   CLUB 

How  well  it  would  be  if  in  the  midst  of  our  hectic  existence, 
the  mad  competitions  of  modern  life,  we  would  remember  that 
after  all  the  problems  of  life  and  indeed  the  problems  of  our 
government  are  essentially  simple.  A  very  simple  proposition 
was  uttered  by  the  President  of  the  United  States  last  night 
when  he,  in  language  which  we  can  all  understand,  stated  the 
proper  functions  of  the  executive  as  compared  with  those  of  the 
Senate.  He  performed  a  great  public  service  and  he  stated  a 
truth.  In  his  presence  I  am  bold  enough  to  quote  him  again. 
Some  years  ago  when  he  was  Governor  of  the  Commonwealth  of 
Massachusetts,  in  one  of  his  public  utterances  he  said,  ^'Men  do 
not  make  laws,  they  discover  them."  No  more  truthful  sentiment 
was  ever  uttered  than  that.  I  am  optimist  enough  to  believe  that 
we  are  learning  by  experience  here  in  America,  and  that  we  are 
discovering  certain  fundamental  truths  which  we  hope  to  trans- 
late into  statutes.  Among  them  is  that  Government  cannot  spend 
money  until  someone  else  earns  it ;  that  when  Government  reaches 
out  its  long  arm  and  taxes  the  people,  it  takes  away  from  them 
a  portion  of  the  dollars  that  they  have  earned;  and  that  when 
Government  takes  away  an  undue  proportion  of  the  earnings  of 
men  and  women  who  work  for  a  living,  and  spends  them  ex- 
travagantly, it  commits  an  offense  against  the  people  impossible 
of  forgiveness.  More  and  more  we  have  come  to  learn  the  truth 
of  that  situation  and,  as  an  evidence  of  our  realization  of  where 
dollars  come  from,  before  the  Government  gets  them,  the  Presi- 
dent and  his  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  propose  a  revision  of  the 
tax  laws  of  this  country  along  sound  and  sensible  lines.  That 
is  but  one  of  the  truths  that  we  are  coming  to  learn — but  one  of 
the  problems  that  confront  the  Government  at  Washington. 

But  reverting  again  to  the  complications  of  modern  life  and 
its  tendency,  I  think  we  are  learning  another  thing,  and  that  is 


ADDRESS  OF  HON.  JAMES  W.  WADSWORTH  373 

that  Government,  to  be  understood,  and  indeed  to  be  controlled  by 
those  who  set  it  up,  should  be  a  simple  government.     Perhaps  I 
may  emphasize  for  just  a  few  moments  the  tendency  of  the  day 
in  that  regard.     I  am  prompted  to  do  so,  by  reason  of  my  mem- 
bership upon  a  joint  committee  of  the  two  Houses,  charged  with 
the  study  of  the  reorganization  of  the  executive  departments  of 
the  Government.    I  think  the  members  of  that  committee  had  an 
idea  when  they  started  out  upon  the  task,  that  they  knew  some- 
thing about  the  Government  of  the  United  States.    We  have  been 
working  at  it  in  steady  hearings  for  six  weeks,  and  to  use  a  col- 
loquialism, *'We  don't  know  the  half."    The  ramifications  of  the 
Federal  Government  to-day   have  reached   such  a  stage  that  I 
honestly  doubt  whether  any  man  alive  can  be  entirely  familiar 
with  them.    As  our  modern  economic  system  and  social  order  de- 
velops, it  has  become  the  feeling  and  desire  of  many  peoplo  that 
the  Federal  Government  should  do  more  and  more  for  the  citizen 
and,  responsive  to  that  desire,  for  many  years  the  Congress  has 
enacted  statute  after  statute,  multiplying  the  functions  of  the 
Federal  Government,  until  we  have  reached  a  point  where,  as  I 
say,  it  is  difficult  to  comprehend;  and  it  is  fast  resulting  in  the 
building  up  of  a  bureaucracy,  far  removed  from  the  direct  con- 
trol of  the  people,  remote,  mysterious,   sometimes  irresponsible. 
With  a  nation  of  a  hundred  millions  of  people,  living  over  a  con- 
tinent, it  would  seem  to  be  essential  that  if  government  is  to 
remain  within  the  control  of  the  people,  it  be  kept  as  simple  as 
possible,  so  that  everyone  can  understand  it  and,  that  if  we  are 
to  make  a  success  in  our  great  experiment  of  self  government, 
the  people  shall  keep  within  their  own  control  the  administra- 
tion of  those  things  which  they  can  manage  in  their  localities, 
as  well,  if  not  better,  than  they  can  be  managed  from  Washington. 
I  would  not  urge  at  this  time  retracing  the  steps  of  our  recent 


374  NATIONAL   REPUBLICAN   CLUB 

governmental  development  to  any  considerable  degree,  but  I 
think  it  is  the  duty  of  every  thoughtful  man  and  woman  to  give 
some  heed  to  the  possibility  of  the  continuance  of  this  tendency. 
For  to-day  the  Congress  is  bombarded  with  various  propositions 
which,  if  carried  out,  will  inject  the  Federal  Government  into 
many  a  new  field  of  activity  and  tend  to  build  it  up  to  even 
greater  dimensions,  and  thus,  to  my  way  of  thinking,  remove  it 
further  from  the  control  of  the  people. 

One  need  not  dwell  upon  the  terrific  strain  imposed  upon  the 
Chief  Executive  and  the  Federal  Government  as  the  result  of  all 
this.  You  are  all  familiar  with  it.  One  might  not  be  concerned 
about  the  future  were  it  not  for  the  suggestions  for  new  under- 
takings which  are  now  before  us.  There  are  those  who  would 
bring  about  Government  ownership  and  operation  of  all  the  rail- 
roads, of  all  the  telegraph  companies  and  of  all  the  telephone 
companies.  There  are  those  who  would  have  the  Federal  Gov- 
ernment purchase  the  entire  wheat  crop  and  hold  it  and  sell  it 
as  a  commercial  proposition. 

Proposals  of  this  kind  would  launch  our  Government  into  new 
fields,  commercial  fields  surrounded  with  terrific  difficulties,  and 
tend  to  bring  about  a  situation  in  which,  I  honestly  believe,  it 
would  become  so  top  heavy  that  it  would  crash  to  the  ground. 

There  is  one  point  upon  which  I  beg  your  indulgence  in  this 
connection.  A  proposal  is  being  made  for  the  Federal  Govern- 
ment to  contribute  from  its  treasury  to  the  support  of  undertak- 
ings at  present  carried  on  in  the  several  States.  It  is  the  prin- 
ciple of  Federal  aid,  so-called.  I  served  six  years  at  Albany  and 
I  think  I  know  something  of  the  Albany  Government.  I  have 
had  nine  years  at  Washington  and  I  know  but  little  of  the  Fed- 
eral Government,  but  enough  to  know  that  the  people  of  this 
State,  for  example,  are  competent  through  their  own  government 


ADDRESS  OF  HON.  JAMES  W.  WADSWORTH  375 

to  take  care  of  their  own  affairs,  and  that  nothing  in  the  way  of 
efficiency  will  be  gained  through  the  State  surrendering  to  the 
Federal  Government  at  the  price  of  Federal  money  the  control  of 
those  things  which  they  have  had  under  their  control  for  a  cen- 
tury or  more. 

If  I  would  make  one  plea — and  perhaps  this  plea  would  better 
come  from  an  old-fashioned  Democrat ;  and  if  I  am  charged  with  be- 
ing one,  I  insist  I  am  pretty  lonely,  because  I  cannot  find  any  others 
— if  I  would  make  one  plea,  it  is  that  we  give  our  thoughts  and 
our  efforts  toward  maintaining  the  simplicity  of  our  Governmental 
machinery  and  keeping  it  as  close  to  the  people  as  possible.  And 
I  think  there  is  no  better  agency  to  guard  our  institutions  in  that 
respect,  to  preserve  them,  to  perfect  them,  to  strengthen  them, 
to  bring  them  home  to  public  understanding,  than  the  great  po- 
litical party  to  which  you  and  I  belong  and  which  is  so  splen- 
didly led  by  the  President  of  the  United  States. 


CALVIN  COOLIDGE 

President  of  the  United  States,  was  born  in  Plym- 
outli,  Vt.,  July  4,  1872;  lawyer;  A.B.,  Amherst  Col- 
lege, 1895;  LL.D.,  Amherst,  1919;  Massachusetts  House 
of  Representatives,  1907-8;  mayor  of  Northampton, 
1910-11;  Massachusetts  Senate,  1912-15;  president  of 
the  Senate,  1914-15;  lieutenant  governor  of  Massachu- 
setts, 1916-18;  governor  of  Massachusetts,  1919-20. 
Was  married  on  October  4,  1905,  to  Miss  Grace  A. 
Goodhue.  Nominated  for  Vice-President  by  the  Re- 
publican National  Convention,  1920,  and  elected  on 
November  2,  1920.  On  August  2,  1923,  succeeded  to 
the  Presidency.  "Unanimously  nominated  for  Presi- 
dent by  the  Republican  National  Convention  at  Cleve- 
land in  June  1924,  and  elected  on  November  4,  1924. 


ADDRESS    OF 

PRESIDENT  CALVIN  COOLIDGE 


Mr.  Chairman,  ladies  and  gentlemen:  I  am  very  grateful  for 
your  cordial  reception.  I  rejoice  with  you  in  the  possession  of 
such  a  Senator  as  James  W.  Wadsworth,  Jr.  He  represents  you 
with  a  capacity  that  is  unexcelled  in  the  Senate  of  the  United 
States.  Fittingly  representing  the  great  State  of  New  York,  his 
invitation  would  be  enough  to  bring  me  here,  but  when  it  is 
supplemented  by  an  occasion  of  this  kind,  to  address  an  organi- 
zation that  represents  what  you  represent,  and  on  an  anniversary 
such  as  this,  it  is  by  no  means  to  be  declined. 

One  hundred  and  fifteen  years  ago  to-day  Abraham  Lincoln 
was  born.  How  great  he  became  can  not  yet  be  accurately  meas- 
ured, although  nearly  sixty  years  have  passed  since  his  death. 
Probably  there  has  been  no  one  justly  entitled  to  be  called  "the 
greatest  man  in  the  world."  As  there  are  many  different  talents, 
so  there  are  many  different  kinds  of  greatness.  This  makes 
comparisons  somewhat  barren  of  results.  But  measured  by  abil- 
ity, achievement,  and  character,  America  has  long  placed  Wash- 
ington and  Lincoln  as  the  two  men  in  our  history  preeminently 
entitled  to  be  termed  "truly  great."  In  this  opinion  we  have 
the  general  concurrence  of  mankind.  While  others  approach 
them,  they  are  not  outranked  by  any  of  the  other  figures  which 
all  of  civilization  has  produced  throughout  its  record  of  thou- 
sands of  years. 


378  NATIONAL   REPUBLICAN   CLUB 

In  a  way  all  men  are  great.  It  is  on  that  conception  that 
American  institutions  have  been  founded.  Perhaps  the  differ- 
ences are  not  so  great  as  many  suppose.  Yet  there  are  differ- 
ences which  set  off  some  men  from  their  fellows.  What  those 
differences  are  in  a  particular  case  is  a  matter  somewhat  of  per- 
sonal opinion.  To  me  the  greatness  of  Lincoln  consisted  very 
largely  of  a  vision  by  which  he  saw  more  clearly  than  the  men 
of  his  time  the  moral  relationship  of  things.  His  great  achieve- 
ment lay  in  bringing  the  different  elements  of  his  country  into 
a  more  truly  moral  relationship.  He  was  the  Commander-in-Chief 
of  the  greatest  armies  the  world  had  then  seen.  They  were  vic- 
torious. Yet  we  do  not  think  of  him  as  a  conqueror.  He  di- 
rected the  raising  and  expenditure  of  vast  sums  of  money.  Yet 
we  do  not  think  of  him  as  a  financier.  The  course  which  he  fol- 
lowed cost  many  lives  and  desolated  much  territory.  Yet  we 
think  of  him  not  as  placing  a  burden  on  the  Nation  but  remov- 
ing one  from  it,  not  as  a  destroyer,  but  as  a  restorer.  He  was  a 
liberator.  He  struck  the  fetters  not  only  from  the  bodies  but 
from  the  minds  of  men.    He  was  a  great  moral  force. 

When  Lincoln  had  finished  his  course,  he  had  made  the  founda- 
tion of  freedom  stronger  and  firmer  on  which  to  build  national 
unity.  Strengthening  that  principle  was  the  chief  accomplish- 
ment of  his  life.  He  pointed  out  that  the  Nation  could  not  en- 
dure half  slave  and  half  free.  The  mighty  work  which  he  did 
finally  left  it  to  endure  all  free.  He  restored  national  unity  by 
restoring  moral  unity. 

The  questions  which  he  considered  in  his  day  we  need  have  no 
hesitation  in  concluding  were  finally  and  definitely  settled.  There 
is  no  difference  of  opinion,  no  argument  about  them  now.  The 
conclusions  which  he  drew  have  long  since  been  the  settled  policy 
of  our  country. 


ADDRESS  OF  PRESIDENT  COOLIDGE  379 

The  conflicts  of  his  time  have  passed  away.  New  developments 
have  taken  place,  new  problems  have  been  met.  The  industrial 
struggle  which  came,  lasting  up  to  the  days  of  the  World  War, 
for  increased  compensation  to  wage  earners,  for  the  bettering  of 
their  conditions,  while  it  has  never  been  fully  settled,  does  not 
appear  at  present  to  be  acute.  The  rewards  of  labor  engaged  in 
commerce,  transportation,  and  industry  are  now  such  as  to  afford 
the  most  liberal  participation  in  all  the  essentials  of  life.  What 
this  tremendous  opportunity  now  held  by  the  wage  earner,  if 
wisely  and  justly  administered,  will  mean  to  the  well-being  of 
the  Nation  is  almost  beyond  comprehension.  It  opens  up  the 
prospect  of  a  new  era  in  human  existence.  It  justifies  the  asser- 
tion that  while  America  has  problems,  it  is  not  lacking  in  the 
ability  and  the  courage  to  comprehend  and  solve  them.  It  is  a 
warrant  for  confidence  in  the  future. 

That  national  unity  for  which  Lincoln  laid  the  foundation  re- 
quires perpetual  adjustment  for  its  maintenance.  How  great  our 
country  really  is,  how  diversified  are  its  interests,  is  almost  beyond 
the  comprehension  of  any  one  man.  Yet  great  and  diversified  as 
it  is,  any  pretense  of  sound  morals  or  sound  economics  requires 
that  each  part,  each  section,  and  each  interest,  should  be  looked 
upon  by  the  Government  with  like  solicitude,  all  sharing  the 
common  burdens,  all  partaking  of  the  common  welfare.  There 
is  no  sound  policy  which  is  narrow,  or  sectional,  or  limited. 
Every  sound  policy  must  be  national  in  its  scope.  It  is  always 
necessary  to  determine  what  will  be  good  for  the  whole  country. 

The  necessary  observance  of  these  principles  requires,  at  the 
present  time,  that  a  large  amount  of  attention  should  be  given 
to  agriculture  This  is  an  interest  on  which  it  is  estimated  that 
more  than  forty  millions  of  our  people  are  directly  or  indirectly 
dependent.    It  represents  an  investment  several  times  as  large  as 


380  NATIONAL   REPUBLICAN   CLUB 

that  of  all  the  railroads  of  the  country.  It  has  an  aggregate 
production  of  over  $8,000,000,000  each  year.  Yet  with  all  these 
vast  resources  of  production  and  consumption,  and  the  vast  pur- 
chasing power  for  the  products  of  the  farm,  which  is  represented 
by  the  prosperity  of  our  industry  and  commerce,  with  here  and 
there  an  exception,  agriculture  as  a  whole  languishes. 

Production  has  outrun  the  power  of  distribution  and  consump- 
tion. The  farm  population  is  not  increasing,  but  the  improved 
methods  of  tillage  and  inventions  in  farm  machinery  have  all 
contributed  to  increase  the  per  capita  output.  It  is  in  this  direc- 
tion that  the  agricultural  schools  and  colleges  have  placed  their 
major  emphasis.  Their  education  has  been  substantially  all  on 
the  side  of  improved  methods  of  production  and  none  on  the  side 
of  distribution,  consumption,  and  marketing. 

When  there  is  a  dif&culty  which  affects  so  large  a  population, 
so  large  an  area,  and  so  important  an  interest  as  that  of  agri- 
culture, it  is  distinctly  a  national  problem.  It  scarcely  needs  to 
be  pointed  out  that  agriculture  is  of  vital  importance  to  the  coun- 
try. It  is  the  primary  source  of  sustenance,  enterprise,  industry, 
and  wealth.  Everyone  ought  to  know  that  it  is  basic  and  funda- 
mental. Without  a  healthy,  productive,  and  prosperous  agricul- 
ture, there  can  be  no  real  national  prosperity.  It  is  perfectly 
obvious  that  there  is  something  radically  wrong  when  agriculture 
is  found  in  its  present  state  of  depression  at  a  time  when  manu- 
facturing, transportation,  and  commerce  are  on  the  whole  in  a 
remarkable  state  of  prosperity. 

No  one  would  deny,  I  suppose,  that  industrially  we  are  very 
flourishing.  Every  standard  by  which  prosperity  is  measured, 
whether  it  be  production,  movement  of  freight,  corporate  earn- 
ings, employment  of  labor,  or  bank  clearings,  all  point  to  the 
same  conclusion.    Disregarding  the  abnormal  war-time  condition. 


ADDRESS  OF  PRESIDENT  COOLIDGE  381 

for  every  important  enterprise,  save  agriculture,  the  year  1923 
undoubtedly  holds  the  record.  Earnings  have  been  very  greatly 
increased,  and  except  here  and  there,  as  in  the  case  of  some  rail- 
roads, must  be  looked  upon  with  a  great  deal  of  satisfaction. 

But  agriculture  has  only  partially  revived.  Its  position  has 
been  improved,  and  the  returns  for  the  year  are  nearly  30  per 
cent  in  excess  of  two  years  ago.  But  the  great  food  staples  do 
not  sell  on  a  parity  with  the  products  of  industry.  Their  average 
price  is  little  above  the  pre-war  level,  while  manufactures  are 
about  50  per  cent  higher.  The  farmer  is  not  receiving  his  fair 
share. 

The  result  has  been  a  decrease  in  the  value  of  farm  lands,  the 
choking  of  the  avenues  of  credit  vTith  obligations  which  are 
worthless  or  doubtful,  the  foreclosures  of  mortgages,  and  the 
suspension  of  a  large  number  of  banks.  To  this  depression  there 
have  been  other  contributing  causes,  but  the  main  difficulty  has 
been  the  price  of  farm  produce. 

Very  likely  you  are  wondering  why  agriculture  should  be  dis- 
cussed here  in  this  metropolis.  One  reason  is  that  I  want  to 
emphasize  as  forcibly  as  possible  your  very  intimate  dependence 
upon  agricultural  welfare.  That  great  interest  cannot  be  affected 
without  the  necessity  of  your  being  affected.  The  farm  is  one  of 
the  chief  markets  for  the  industries  of  the  Nation.  You  have  a 
direct  economic  and  financial  interest.  You  cannot  long  prosper 
with  that  great  population  and  great  areas  in  distress.  You  have 
a  political  interest.  The  people  of  those  numerous  States  have  an 
enormous  influence  upon  the  making  of  the  laws  by  which  you 
are  governed.  Unsound  economic  conditions  are  not  conducive 
to  sound  legislation.  The  farm  has  a  social  value  which  cannot 
be  overestimated.  It  is  the  natural  home  of  liberty  and  the  sup- 
port of  courage  and  character.    In  all  the  Nation  it  is  the  chief 


382  NATIONAL   REPUBLICAN   CLUB 

abiding  place  of  the  spirit  of  independence.  I  do  not  need  to 
dwell  upon  the  moral  requirement  for  the  equitable  distribution 
of  prosperity  and  the  relief  of  distress  by  the  application  of  every 
possible  and  sound  remedy.  This  problem  is  not  merely  the  prob- 
lem of  the  agricultural  sections  of  our  country;  it  is  the  problem 
likewise  of  industry,  of  transportation,  of  commerce,  and  of  bank- 
ing. I  bring  it  to  you  because  I  know  that  in  part  it  is  your 
problem.  I  have  already  encouraged  organization  and  co-oper- 
ative marketing  that  organized  agriculture  may  cope  with  or- 
ganized industry.  I  have  promoted  tariff  investigations  for  in- 
creased rates  on  wheat.  I  have  extended  relief  through  the  War 
Finance  Corporation  and  the  Federal  reserve  bank  system. 

I  shall  not  now  discuss  the  details  of  legislation  or  enter  upon 
a  presentation  of  peculiarly  agricultural  remedies.  I  made  spe- 
cific recommendations  in  my  message  to  the  Congress,  and  there 
are  bills  pending  for  carrying  my  suggestions  into  effect.  What 
I  am  most  anxious  to  impress  upon  the  prosperous  part  of  our 
country  is  the  utmost  necessity  that  it  should  be  willing  to 
make  sacrifices  for  the  assistance  of  the  unsuccessful  part.  I  do 
not  mean  by  that  any  unsound  device  like  price  fixing,  which  I 
oppose,  because  it  would  not  make  prices  higher  but  would  in  the 
end  make  them  lower,  it  would  not  be  successful  and  would  not 
prove  a  remedy,  but  I  do  mean  that  the  resources  of  the  country 
ought  to  come  to  the  support  of  agriculture.  The  organization 
recently  perfected  to  supply  money  and  management  for  the  larger 
aspects  of  agriculture  ought  to  have  your  sympathetic  and  active 
support.  I  am  glad  financial  America  is  moving  in  that  direction. 
It  will  be  less  work  and  less  expense  for  you  to  meet  this  situa- 
tion in  this  way,  for  you  will  meet  it;  you  will  be  affected  by  its 
economic,  political,  and  moral  results. 

When  an  examination  is  made  to  ascertain  some  of  the  causes 


ADDRESS  OF  PRESIDENT  COOLIDGE  383 

of  these  conditions,  among  the  first  which  suggest  themselves  is 
the  amount  and  the  method  of  national  taxation.  Out  of  an  in- 
come of  about  $60,000,000,000  a  year  the  people  of  this  country 
pay  nearly  $7,500,000,000  in  taxes,  which  is  over  $68  for  every 
inhabitant  of  the  land.  Of  this  amount  the  National  Government 
collects  about  $3,200,000,000,  and  the  State  and  local  govern- 
ments about  $4,300,000,000.  As  a  direct  burden  this  is  a  stu- 
pendous sum,  but  when  it  is  realized  that  in  the  course  of  our 
economic  life  it  is  greatly  augmented  when  it  reaches  the  con- 
sumer in  the  form  of  the  high  cost  of  living,  its  real  significance 
begins  to  be  appreciated.  The  national  and  local  governments 
ought  to  be  unremitting  in  their  efforts  to  reduce  expenditures 
and  pay  their  debts.  This  the  National  Government  is  earnestly 
seeking  to  do.  The  war  cost  of  more  than  $40,000,000,000  is 
already  nearly  half  paid.  Amid  the  disordered  currencies  of  the 
warring  nations  our  money  is,  and  has  been  maintained,  at  the 
gold  standard.  Our  budget  has  long  since  been  balanced,  and 
out  debt-paying  program  is  at  the  rate  of  $500,000,000  each  year. 
In  spite  of  all  these  expenditures,  the  next  fiscal  year  has  an 
estimated  surplus  revenue  of  over  $300,000,000. 

This  represents  a  great  financial  achievement  in  the  past  three 
years.  In  the  first  place,  it  was  necessary  to  provide  for  more 
than  $7,000,000,000  of  short-term  securities.  These  have  all 
either  been  paid  or  refunded,  so  that  they  will  become  due  in  the 
future  at  orderly  intervals,  when  they  can  be  retired  or  further 
extended.  When  it  is  realized  that  such  large  loans  were  made 
in  a  way  that  not  only  left  business  undisturbed,  but  was  scarcely 
perceptible  to  the  public,  the  skill  with  which  Secretary  Mellon 
managed  them  can  well  be  appreciated. 

Coincident  with  this  was  the  even  greater  task  of  reducing  na- 
tional expenditures.     Through  legislative  enactment  and  execu- 


384  NATIONAL   REPUBLICAN   CLTJB 

tive  effort  this  has  gone  steadily  forward,  and  is  now  proceeding 
from  day  to  day.  Under  the  watchful  care  of  the  Budget  Bureau 
every  department  is  constantly  striving  to  eliminate  all  waste 
and  discard  every  unnecessary  expense. 

Every  reasonable  effort  has  been  made  to  secure  the  liquidation 
of  our  international  debts.  The  largest,  which  was  that  of  Great 
Britain,  and  which  amounted  with  accumulated  interest  to  $4,600,- 
000,000,  has  been  settled  on  terms  that  provide  for  its  payment 
over  a  period  of  62  years.  Interest  runs  at  3  per  cent  until 
1933,  and  after  that  31/2  per  cent.  This  calls  for  payments  in  the 
immediate  future  of  $160,000,000  and  more  a  year.  They  have 
the  option  to  pay  us  in  our  own  bonds,  and  in  its  practical  work- 
ing this  agreement  does  not  involve  cash  payments  to  this  coun- 
try, but  simply  a  mutual  cancellation  of  debts.  The  funding  of 
the  British  debt  was  one  of  the  greatest  of  international  financial 
transactions.  It  had  its  effect  on  business  confidence,  which  was 
world  wide.  It  demonstrated  the  determination  of  a  great  em- 
pire faithfully  to  discharge  its  international  obligations.  In 
this  respect  it  was  much  more  than  a  financial  transaction,  it 
was  an  exhibition  of  the  highest  type  of  international  honor.  It 
showed  that  the  moral  standards  of  the  world  were  going  to  be 
maintained. 

All  of  this  has  laid  the  foundation  for  national  tax  reduction 
and  reform.  In  time  ef  war  finances,  like  all  else,  must  yield  to 
national  defense  and  preservation.  In  time  of  peace  finances, 
like  all  else,  should  minister  to  the  general  welfare.  Immediately 
upon  my  taking  office  it  was  determined  after  conference  with 
Secretary  Mellon  that  the  Treasury  Department  should  study  the 
possibility  of  tax  reduction  for  the  purpose  of  securing  relief  to 
all  taxpayers  of  the  country  and  emancipating  business  from  un- 
reasonable and  hampering  exactions.     The  result  was  the  pro- 


ADDRESS  OF  PRESIDENT  COOLIDGE  385 

posed  bill,  which  is  now  pending  before  the  Congress.  It  is  doubt- 
ful if  any  measure  ever  received  more  generous  testimony  of  ap- 
proval. Opposition  has  appeared  to  some  of  its  details,  but  to  the 
policy  of  immediate  and  drastic  reduction  of  taxes,  so  arranged 
as  to  benefit  all  classes  and  all  kinds  of  business,  there  has  been 
the  most  general  approbation.  These  recommendations  have  been 
made  by  the  Treasury  as  the  expert  financial  adviser  of  the  Gov- 
ernment. They  follow,  in  their  main  principle  of  a  decrease  in 
high  surtaxes,  which  is  only  another  name  for  war  taxes,  the 
views  of  the  two  preceding  Secretaries  of  the  Treasury,  both  of 
them  Democrats  of  pronounced  ability.  They  are  non-partisan, 
well  thought  out,  and  sound.  They  carry  out  the  policy  of  re- 
ducing the  taxes  of  everybody,  especially  people  of  moderate  in- 
come. They  give  to  the  country  almost  a  million  dollars  every 
working  day. 

The  proposed  bill  maintains  the  fixed  policy  of  rates  gradu- 
ated in  proportion  to  ability  to  pay.  That  policy  has  received 
almost  universal  sanction.  It  is  sustained  by  sound  arguments 
based  on  economic,  social,  and  moral  grounds.  But  in  taxation, 
like  everything  else,  it  is  necessary  to  test  a  theory  by  practical 
results.  The  first  object  of  taxation  is  to  secure  revenue.  When 
the  taxation  of  large  incomes  is  approached  with  that  in  view, 
the  problem  is  to  find  a  rate  which  will  produce  the  largest  re- 
turns. Experience  does  not  show  that  the  higher  rate  produces 
the  larger  revenue.  Experience  is  all  in  the  other  way.  When 
the  surtax  rate  on  incomes  of  $300,000  and  over  was  but  10  per 
cent,  the  revenue  was  about  the  same  as  when  it  was  at  65  per 
cent.  There  is  no  escaping  the  fact  that  when  the  taxation  of 
large  incomes  is  excessive,  they  tend  to  disappear.  In  1916  there 
were  206  incomes  of  $1,000,000  or  more.  Then  the  high  tax  rate 
went  into  effect.     The  next  year  there  were  only  141,  and  in 


386  NATIONAL   REPUBLICAN   CLUB 

1918  but  67.  In  1919  the  number  declined  to  65.  In  1920  it 
fell  to  33,  and  in  1921  it  was  further  reduced  to  21.  I  am  not 
making  any  argument  with  the  man  who  believes  that  55  per 
cent  ought  to  be  taken  away  from  the  man  with  $1,000,000  in- 
come, or  68  per  cent  from  a  $5,000,000  income;  but  when  it  is 
considered  that  in  the  effort  to  get  these  amounts  we  are  rapidly 
approaching  the  point  of  getting  nothing  at  all,  it  is  necessary 
to  look  for  a  more  practical  method.  That  can  be  done  only  by 
a  reduction  of  the  high  surtaxes  when  viewed  solely  as  a  revenue 
proposition,  to  about  25  per  cent. 

I  agree  perfectly  with  those  who  wish  to  relieve  the  small  tax- 
payer by  getting  the  largest  possible  contribution  from  the  peo- 
ple with  large  incomes.  But  if  the  rates  on  large  incomes  are 
so  high  that  they  disappear,  the  small  taxpayer  will  be  left  to 
bear  the  entire  burden.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  the  rates  are 
placed  where  they  will  produce  the  most  revenue  from  large  in- 
comes, then  the  small  taxpayer  will  be  relieved.  The  experience 
of  the  Treasury  Department  and  the  opinion  of  the  best  experts 
place  the  rate  which  will  collect  most  from  the  people  of  great 
wealth,  thus  giving  the  largest  relief  to  people  of  moderate  wealth, 
at  not  over  25  per  cent. 

A  very  important  social  and  economic  question  is  also  involved 
in  high  rates.  That  is  the  result  taxation  has  upon  national  de- 
velopment. Our  progress  in  that  direction  depends  upon  two 
factors — personal  ability  and  surplus  income.  An  expanding 
prosperity  requires  that  the  largest  possible  amount  of  surplus 
income  should  be  invested  in  productive  enterprise  under  the  di- 
rection of  the  best  personal  ability.  This  will  not  be  done  if  the 
rewards  of  such  action  are  very  largely  taken  away  by  taxation. 
If  we  had  a  tax  whereby  on  the  first  working  day  the  Govern- 
ment took  5  per  cent  of  your  wages,  on  the  second  day  10  per 


ADDRESS  OF  PRESIDENT  COOLIDGE  387 

cent,  on  the  third  day  20  per  cent,  on  the  fourth  day  30  per 
cent,  on  the  fifth  day  50  per  cent,  and  on  the  sixth  day  60  per 
cent;  how  many  of  you  would  continue  to  work  on  the  last  two 
days  of  the  week?  It  is  the  same  with  capital.  Surplus  income 
will  go  into  tax-exempt  securities.  It  will  refuse  to  take  the  risk 
incidental  to  embarking  in  business.  This  will  raise  the  rate 
which  established  business  will  have  to  pay  for  new  capital,  and 
result  in  a  marked  increase  in  the  cost  of  living.  If  new  capital 
will  not  flow  into  competing  enterprise  the  present  concerns  tend 
toward  monopoly,  increasing  again  the  prices  which  the  people 
must  pay. 

The  high  prices  paid  and  low  prices  received  on  the  farm  are 
directly  due  to  our  unsound  method  of  taxation.  I  shall  illustrate 
this  by  a  simple  example:  A  farmer  ships  a  steer  to  Chicago. 
His  tax,  the  tax  on  the  railroad  transporting  the  animal,  and  of 
the  yards  where  the  animal  is  sold,  go  into  the  price  of  the  animal 
to  the  packer.  The  packer's  tax  goes  into  the  price  of  the  hide 
to  the  New  England  shoe  manufacturer.  The  manufacturer's  tax 
goes  into  the  price  to  the  wholesaler,  and  the  wholesaler's  tax 
goes  into  the  price  to  the  retailer,  who  in  turn  adds  his  tax  in 
the  price  to  the  purchaser.  So  it  may  be  said  that  if  the  farmer 
ultimately  wears  the  shoes,  he  pays  everybody's  taxes  from  the 
farm  to  his  feet.  It  is  for  these  reasons  that  high  taxes  mean  a 
high  price  level,  and  a  high  price  level  in  its  turn  means  diffi- 
culty in  meeting  world  competition.  Most  of  all,  the  farmer  suf- 
fers from  the  effect  of  this  high  price  level.  In  what  he  buys 
he  meets  domestic  costs  of  high  taxes  and  the  high  price  level. 
In  what  he  sells  he  meets  world  competition  with  a  low  price 
level.  It  is  essential,  therefore,  for  the  good  of  the  people  as  a 
whole  that  we  pay  not  so  much  attention  to  the  tax  paid  directly 
by  a  certain  number  of  the  taxpayers,  but  we  must  devote  our 


388  NATIONAL   REPUBLICAN   CLUB 

efforts  to  relieving  the  tax  paid  indirectly  by  the  whole  people. 

Taken  altogether,  I  think  it  is  easy  enough  to  see  that  I  wish 
to  include  in  the  program  a  reduction  in  the  high  surtax  rates, 
not  that  small  incomes  may  be  required  to  pay  more  and  large 
incomes  be  required  to  pay  less,  but  that  more  revenue  may  be 
secured  from  large  incomes  and  taxes  on  small  incomes  may  be 
reduced;  not  because  I  wish  to  relieve  the  wealthy,  but  because 
I  wish  to  relieve  the  country. 

The  practical  working  out  of  the  proposed  schedules  is  best 
summarized  by  the  Treasury  experts,  who  find  that  $92,000,000 
a  year  will  be  saved  to  those  who  have  incomes  under  $6,000; 
$52,000,000  to  those  who  have  incomes  between  $6,000  and 
$10,000;  and  that  less  than  3  per  cent  of  the  proposed  reduction 
would  accrue  to  those  who  have  incomes  of  $100,000  or  more.  A 
married  man  with  two  children,  having  an  income  of  $4,000, 
would  have  his  tax  reduced  from  $28  to  $15.75;  having  $5,000, 
from  $68  to  $38.25;  having  $6,000,  from  $128  to  $72;  having 
$8,000,  from  $276  to  $144;  and  having  $10,000,  $456  to  $234. 

In  order  to  secure  these  results,  the  administration  bill  pro- 
poses to  reduce  the  tax  on  earned  income  25  per  cent,  and  the 
normal  tax  on  unearned  income  also  25  per  cent.  This  would 
apply  to  all  incomes  alike,  great  and  small,  and  would  provide 
general  and  extensive  relief.  Further  reductions  would  be  se- 
cured by  increasing  the  amount  of  income,  exempt  from  sur- 
taxes, from  $6,000  to  $10,000.  Such  surtaxes  increase  progres- 
sively until  on  incomes  of  $100,000  or  more  they  reach  the  maxi- 
mum of  25  per  cent  which,  with  the  normal  tax  of  6  per  cent, 
make  large  incomes  pay  in  all  31  per  cent.  It  is  also  proposed 
to  repeal  many  troublesome  and  annoying  rates,  such  as  admis- 
sion taxes  and  sales  taxes,  the  existence  of  which  is  reflected  in 
the  increased  cost  of  doing  business  and  the  higher  prices  re- 
quired from  the  people. 


ADDHESS  OF  PRESIDENT  COOLIDGE  389 

That  is  the  tax  measure  which  has  been  proposed,  and  which 
has  my  support.    Because  I  wish  to  give  to  all  the  people  all  the 
relief  which  it  contains,  I  am  opposed  to  material  alteration  or 
to  compromise.    It  is  about  as  far  removed  as  anything  could  be 
from  any  kind  of  partisanship.     At  least,  I  do  not  charge  that 
there  is  any  party  or  any  responsible  party  leadership  that  admits 
it  is  opposed  to  making  taxes  low  and  in  favor  of  keeping  taxes 
high.     But  the  actions  and  proposals  of  some  are  liable  to  have 
just  that  result.     I   stand  on  the  simple  proposition  that  the 
country  is  entitled  to  all  the  relief  from  the  burden  of  taxation 
that  it  is  possible  to  give.    The  proposed  measure  gives  such  re- 
lief.    Other  measures  which  have  been  brought  forward  do  not 
meet  this  requirement.    They  have  the  appearance  of  an  indirect 
attempt  to  defeat  a  good  measure  with  a  bad  measure.       You 
have  heard  much  of  the  Garner  plan.    Brought  forward  to  have 
something  different,  it  purported  to  relieve  the  greatest  number 
of  taxpayers.     It  gave  not  the  slightest  heed  to  the  indirect  ef- 
fect of  high  taxes,  or  to  the  approaching  drying  up  of  the  source 
of  revenue  and  consequent  failure  of  the  progressive  income  tax, 
or  to  the  destruction  of  business  initiative.     It  is  political  in 
theory.    When  the  effect  of  its  provisions  was  estimated,  it  meant 
a  loss  of  revenue  beyond  the  expected  surplus.     It  is  impossible 
in  practice.    The  people  will  not  be  misled  by  such  proposals.    It 
is  entirely  possible  to  have  a  first-class  bill.    I  want  the  country 
to  have  the  best  there  is.    I  am  for  it  because  it  will  reduce  taxes 
on  all  classes  of  income.    I  am  for  it  because  it  will  encourage 
business.    I  am  for  it  because  it  will  decrease  the  cost  of  living. 
I  am  for  it  because  it  is  economically,  socially  and  morally  sound. 
But  the  people  of  the  Nation  must  understand  that  this  is  their 
fight.     They  alone  can  win  it.     Unless  they  make  their  wishes 
known  to  the  Congress  without  regard  to  party  this  bill  will  not 
pass.    I  urge  them  to  renewed  efforts. 


390  NATIONAL  REPUBLICAN   CLUB 

Since  August,  1919,  the  public  debt  has  been  decreasing.  About 
$4,500,000,000  has  been  paid  off.  This  means  a  reduction  in 
interest  of  almost  $200,000,000.  It  is  of  the  utmost  importance, 
in  order  to  be  able  to  meet  a  fast  approaching  foreign  competi- 
tion, that  to  keep  business  good  and  prevent  depression  we  re- 
duce our  debt  and  keep  our  expenditures  as  low  as  possible. 
These  are  the  economic  reasons  why  the  granting  of  a  bonus 
would  jeopardize  the  welfare  of  the  whole  country.  It  is  esti- 
mated that  under  the  bonus  bill  which  was  vetoed,  if  all  the 
beneficiaries  had  taken  the  certificates  which  it  was  proposed  to 
issue,  the  plan  would  have  cost  $225,000,000  annually  for  the 
first  four  years,  and  a  total  of  $5,400,000,000.  This  would  more 
than  destroy  all  the  great  labor  which  the  country  has  gone 
through  for  the  purpose  of  reducing  its  debt.  It  would  mean 
the  indefinite  postponement  of  any  tax  reduction,  another  increase 
in  the  cost  of  living,  more  drying  up  of  the  sources  of  credit, 
and  a  probable  raising  of  the  rates  of  interest ;  all  of  which  would 
result  in  infiation  and  higher  prices,  with  the  grave  danger  of 
ultimate  disaster  to  our  financial  system.  We  have  been  through 
one  period  of  deflation.  Nearly  all  the  men  on  the  farms  and 
many  of  the  men  in  business  have  not  yet  recovered  from  it,  and 
the  country  certainly  does  not  want  to  take  the  risk  of  another 
like  experience.  A  few  months  of  good  times  are  worth  more  to 
the  service  men  themselves  than  anything  they  could  receive  in 
the  way  of  a  bonus. 

But  this  question  goes  deeper  than  that.  I  am  aware  that 
some  men  made  money  out  of  the  war.  Most  of  them  lost  what 
they  made,  but  not  all.  No  doubt  there  are  some  such  who  are 
justly  to  be  criticized  for  greed  and  selfishness.  Unfortunately 
they  would  not  pay  the  bonus.  It  would  have  to  be  paid  by  the 
country.     I  have  already  undertaken  to  demonstrate  that  taxes 


ADDRESS  OF  PRESIDENT  COOLIDGE  391 

are  paid  by  the  great  mass  of  the  people.  It  is  necessary  to  con- 
sider whether  there  be  any  moral  justification  for  placing  all  the 
people  under  this  great  burden,  in  order  to  pay  some  money  to  a 
part  of  the  people,  many  of  whom  do  not  want  it  and  are  offer- 
ing pronounced  objection  to  it.  A  very  large  body  of  the  service 
men  do  not  want  the  bonus,  and  object  to  being  taxed  in  order 
that  it  may  be  paid.  Their  request  is  entitled  to  just  as  much 
consideration  as  the  request  of  those  who  do  want  it.  They  are 
just  as  eager  now  to  save  their  country  from  financial  disaster 
as  they  were  formerly  to  save  it  from  military  disaster.  They 
are  entitled  to  be  heard.  This  question  ought  to  be  decided  in 
accordance  with  the  welfare  of  the  whole  country. 

No  one  doubts  the  patriotism  of  those  who  advocate  the  bonus. 
No  one  denies  that  the  country  owes  a  debt,  which  it  never  can 
pay,  to  those  who  were  in  the  service.  Their  disabilities  must  be 
recompensed,  their  health  restored,  their  dependents  supported; 
all  at  public  expense.  They  are  entitled  to  the  highest  honor. 
But  the  service  they  rendered  was  of  such  a  nature  that  it  can 
not  be  recompensed  to  them  by  a  payment  of  money.  America 
was  not  waging  war  for  the  purpose  of  securing  spoils.  The 
American  soldier  did  not  enter  the  service  for  the  purpose  of  se- 
curing personal  gain. 

I  have  lately  undertaken  to  define  the  outline  of  the  foreign 
policy  of  the  present  Government.  Nothing  has  occurred  since 
my  message  to  the  Congress  that  requires  any  change  in  that 
policy.  The  prospect  of  a  European  settlement,  however,  has 
arisen,  which  holds  some  promise.  Three  Americans  of  outstand- 
ing and  well-seasoned  ability  have  been  called  to  give  their  ex- 
pert assistance  and  advice.  They  do  not  represent  our  Govern- 
ment. Their  only  official  standing  comes  from  their  being  agents 
of  the  Reparation  Commission     Yet  they  can  not   help   being 


NATIONAL   REPUBLICAN   CLUB 


Americans,  and  will  bring  to  their  problem  not  the  point  of  view 
of  the  American  Government  but,  what  may  be  more  effective, 
the  point  of  view  of  the  American  mind.  Without  doubt  any 
settlement  would  call  for  a  European  funding  and  financing, 
which  would  be  of  doubtful  success  without  American  participa- 
tion. The  export  of  such  capital  as  is  not  required  for  domestic 
business,  and  which  the  American  people  feel  can  be  profitably 
done,  having  in  view  the  financial  returns,  enlargement  of  our 
trade,  and  the  discharge  of  the  moral  obligation  of  bearing  our 
share  of  the  burdens  of  the  world,  entirely  in  accordance  with 
the  choice  of  our  own  independent  judgment,  ought  to  be  en- 
couraged. 

Our  Government  does  not  want  war  anywhere.  It  wants  peace 
everywhere.  It  does  not  look  with  sympathy  upon  the  manu- 
facture or  sale  of  arms  and  munitions  by  which  one  country  might 
make  war  upon  another  country.  It  recognizes,  however,  that 
every  government  must  necessarily  maintain  some  military  estab- 
lishment for  national  defense  and  the  policing  of  its  own  domain. 
For  such  incidental  purposes  there  could  be  little  criticism  for 
our  Government  or  private  interests,  having  the  necessary  equip- 
ment, to  furnish  it.  But  it  is  a  traffic  which  we  wish  to  dis- 
courage, rather  than  encourage.  We  do  not  believe  in  great  arma- 
ments. Especially  are  we  opposed  to  anything  like  competitive 
armaments.  While  the  present  time  does  not  appear  propitious 
for  a  further  effort  at  limitation,  should  a  European  settlement 
be  accomplished,  something  might  be  hoped  for  in  that  direction. 
The  United  States  stands  ready  to  join  with  the  other  great 
powers,  whenever  there  appears  to  be  reasonable  prospect  of 
agreement  in  a  further  limitation  of  competitive  armaments. 

A  situation  has  recently  arisen  in  Mexico  which  has  caused 
some  solicitude.     We  recognize  that  the  people  of  that  country 


ADDRESS  OF  PRESIDENT  COOLIDGE  393 

have  a  perfect  right  to  set  up  and  pull  down  governments  without 
any  interference  from  us,  so  long  as  there  is  no  interference  with 
the  lawful  rights  of  our  Government  or  our  citizens  within  their 
territory.  We  do  not  harbor  the  slightest  desire  to  dictate  to 
them  in  the  smallest  degree.  We  have  every  wish  to  be  friendly 
and  helpful.  After  a  long  period  of  shifting  and  what  appeared 
to  us  to  be  unsubstantial  governments  in  that  country,  we  recent- 
ly reached  the  opinion  that  President  Obregon  has  established  a 
Government  which  is  stable  and  effective,  and  disposed  to  observe 
international  obligations.  We  therefore  recognized  it.  When  dis- 
order arose  there.  President  Obregon  sought  the  purchase  of  a 
small  amount  of  arms  and  munitions  from  our  Government  for 
the  purpose  of  insuring  his  own  domestic  tranquility.  We  had 
either  to  refuse  or  to  comply.  To  refuse  would  have  appeared  to 
be  equivalent  to  deciding  that  a  friendly  government,  which  we 
had  recognized,  ought  not  to  be  permitted  to  protect  itself.  Stated 
in  another  way,  it  would  mean  that  we  had  decided  that  it  ought 
to  be  overthrown,  and  that  the  very  agency  which  we  had  held 
out  as  able  to  protect  the  interests  of  our  citizens  within  its  bor- 
ders ought  not  to  be  permitted  to  have  the  means  to  make  such 
protection  effective.    My  decision  ran  in  a  counter  direction. 

It  was  not  a  situation  of  our  making,  but  one  which  came  and 
had  to  be  met.  In  meeting  it,  I  did  what  I  thought  was  neces- 
sary to  discharge  the  moral  obligation  of  one  friendly  govern- 
ment to  another.  The  supremacy  of  the  Obregon  Government  now 
appears  to  be  hopeful.  Whatever  may  be  the  outcome,  we  are 
not  responsible  for  it.  We  did  what  I  believed  was  right  to  do 
under  the  circumstances.  It  was  done,  not  for  the  purpose  of 
protecting  any  particular  individuals  or  interests,  but  to  exercise 
a  legal  right,  while  at  the  same  time  throwing  our  influence  in 
favor  of  orderly  procedure  and  evidencing  our  friendship  toward 


394  NATIONAL  REPUBLICAN   CLTJB 

the  friendly  Government  of  Mexico.    Any  other  course  would  ap- 
pear to  me  to  be  unworthy  of  our  country. 

I  propose  to  continue  whatever  course  of  action  is  customary 
between  friendly  governments.  While  I  trust  no  further  action 
may  be  necessary,  I  shall  continue  to  afford  protection  in  accord- 
ance with  the  requirements  of  international  law.  I  propose  to 
protect  American  lives  and  American  rights. 

Lately  there  have  been  most  startling  revelations  concerning 
the  leasing  of  Government  oil  lands.  It  is  my  duty  to  extend  to 
every  individual  the  constitutional  right  to  the  presumption  of 
innocence  until  proven  guilty.  But  I  have  another  duty  equally 
constitutional,  and  even  more  important,  of  securing  the  enforce- 
ment of  the  law.    In  that  duty  I  do  not  intend  to  fail. 

Character  is  the  only  secure  foundation  of  the  State.  We  know 
well  that  all  plans  for  improving  the  machinery  of  government 
and  all  measures  for  social  betterment  fail,  and  the  hopes  of 
progress  wither,  when  corruption  touches  administration.  At  the 
revelation  of  greed  making  its  subtle  approaches  to  public  officers, 
of  the  prostitution  of  high  place  to  private  profit,  we  are  filled 
with  scorn  and  with  indignation.  We  have  a  deep  sense  of  hu- 
miliation at  such  gross  betrayal  of  trust,  and  we  lament  the 
undermining  of  public  confidence  in  official  integrity.  But  we 
cannot  rest  with  righteous  wrath;  still  less  can  we  permit  our- 
selves to  give  way  to  cynicism.  The  heart  of  the  American  peo- 
ple is  sound.  Their  officers,  with  rare  exceptions,  are  faithful  and 
high-minded.  For  us,  we  propose  to  follow  the  clear,  open  path 
of  justice.  There  will  be  immediate,  adequate,  unshrinking  pro- 
secution, criminal  and  civil,  to  punish  the  guilty  and  to  protect 
every  national  interest.  In  this  effort  there  will  be  no  politics 
and  no  partisanship.    It  will  be  speedy,  it  will  be  just.    I  am  a 


ADDRESS  OF  PRESIDENT  COOLIDGE  395 

Republican,  but  I  can  not  on  that  account  shield  anyone  because 
he  is  a  Republican.  I  am  a  Republican  but  I  can  not  on  that 
account  prosecute  anyone  because  he  is  a  Democrat. 

I  want  no  hue  and  cry,  no  mingling  of  innocent  and  guilty  in 
unthinking  condemnation,  no  confusion  of  mere  questions  of  law 
with  questions  of  fraud  and  corruption.  It  is  at  such  a  time  that 
the  quality  of  our  citizenry  is  tested — unrelenting  toward  evil, 
fair-minded  and  intent  upon  the  requirements  of  due  process,  the 
shield  of  the  innocent  and  the  safeguard  of  society  itself.  I  ask 
the  support  of  our  people,  as  Chief  Magistrate,  intent  on  the  en- 
forcement of  our  laws  without  fear  and  without  favor,  no  matter 
who  is  hurt  or  what  the  consequences. 

Distressing  as  this  situation  has  been,  it  has  its  reassuring  side. 
The  high  moral  standards  of  the  people  were  revealed  by  their 
instant  reaction  against  wrongdoing.  The  officers  of  the  Govern- 
ment, without  respect  to  party,  have  demonstrated  a  common 
purpose  to  protect  Government  property  and  to  bring  guilt  to 
justice.  We  have  the  trials  and  perplexities  of  our  day,  but  they 
seem  insignificant  compared  with  those  which  taxed  the  genius 
of  Lincoln.  The  Government  maintained  itself  then;  the  Govern- 
ment will  maintain  itself  now.  The  forces  of  evil  do  not  long  tri- 
umph. The  power  of  justice  can  not  long  be  delayed.  The  moral 
force  of  Lincoln  is  with  us  still.  "He  that  keepeth  Israel  shall 
neither  slumber  nor  sleep." 


THE    THIRTY-NINTH 

ANNUAL  LINCOLN  DINNEE 

of  the 

NATIONAL  REPUBLICAN   CLUB 

At  the  Waldorf-Astoria 

FEBRUARY  12,  1925 


Addresses  of 


HON.  SIMEON  D.  FESS 


HON.   CHARLES  E.  HUGHES 


ADDRESS   OF 

SENATOR  FESS 


Mr.  President,  ladies  and  gentlemen: 

Listening  to  the  recital  of  the  galaxy  of  great  men  who  have 
appeared  on  the  Lincoln  anniversary  is  enough  to  be  bewildering 
to  anyone  who  is  given  the  honor  to  address  such  an  audience  as 
this  on  the  character  of  Lincoln.  There  isn't  anything  new  that 
any  of  us  can  say,  there  is  no  subject  that  has  been  so  thoroughly 
discussed  in  the  years  that  have  gone  as  the  subject  of  the  mar- 
tyred President.  Yet,  with  so  much  said  about  him,  his  active 
career  covered  such  few  years. 

When  he  was  elected  to  Congress  in  1846  he  submitted  as  a 
part  of  the  Congressional  Directory  a  brief  paragraph.  Let  me 
read  it  as  he  wrote  it: 

"Born,  February  12,  1809. 

"Education,  defective. 

"Profession,  lawyer. 

"Captain  in  the  Black  Hawk  War. 

"Four  times  elected  member  of  the  Legislature,  and 

"Now  a  member  of  Congress." 

He  was  not  a  candidate  for  re-election  when  his  term  expired. 
He  retired  to  his  profession,  and  not  until  1854,  on  the  occasion 
of  the  repeal  of  the  Missouri  Compromise,  was  this  spirit  aroused, 
and  he  came  to  the  public  with  a  defiant  call  against  the  threat- 
ened extension  of  slavery.    In  that  year  he  made  this  statement: 

"Broken  by  it  I  too  may  be,  bow  to  it  I  never  will." 


400  NATIONAL   REPUBLICAN   CLTJB 


Four  years  afterward  he  was  nominated  for  the  position  of 
Senator,  a  position  then  occupied  by  the  Little  Giant  of  the  West, 
Stephen  A.  Douglas.  He  addressed  the  Convention  that  nominated 
him,  and  his  first  sentence  was  pronounced  revolutionary.  It 
was  in  that  speech  that  he  said: 

"A  house  divided  against  itself  cannot  stand.  This 
government  cannot  permanently  endure  half  slave  and 
half  free." 

Before  he  pronounced  that  statement  there  was  a  conference 
of  a  dozen  of  his  friends,  the  leading  men  that  thought  with 
him,  and  when  he  told  them  what  he  intended  to  say,  they  pro- 
tested and  said  it  would  ruin  him.  He  listened  to  their  protest, 
and  ended  it  by  saying: 

"Friends,  this  thing  must  not  be  further  deferred.  If 
I  am  to  go  down  to  defeat  because  of  this  speech,  then 
let  me  go  down  linked  with  truth,  let  me  die  doing 
what  is  right  and  just." 

When  the  twelve  men  withdrew,  others  of  his  most  intimates 
came  to  protest,  and  his  reply  was: 

"Before  God,  I  believe  it  is  right,  and  I  am  going  to 
make  the  speech." 

He  made  it,  and  that  utterance  made  him  an  international  fig- 
ure, for  he  was  quoted  throughout  the  world  in  the  largest  pub- 
lications of  Europe.  That  was  in  1858.  The  night  after  he 
made  this  speech  Douglas  attacked  him  in  the  City  of  Chicago. 
Lincoln  spoke  in  Chicago  the  night  after  Douglas  spoke,  and  he 
used  a  remarkable  statement  in  that  Chicago  speech: 

"I  am  not  educated,  I  do  not  speak  good  English;  I 
meant  to  say  so  and  so." 


ADDRESS  OF  HON.  SIMEON  D.  FESS  401 

And  then  he  proceeded  to  say  what  he  thought  he  had  said 
down  in  Springfield. 

''Ladies  and  gentlemen,"  Lincoln  said  that  night: 

"I  am  not  educated,  I  do  not  speak  good  English,"  and  yet  the 
world  to-day  concedes  him  the  master  of  spoken  English,  the  son 
of  the  unlettered  pioneer  of  the  West,  came  to  the  position  of 
speaking  a  purer  English  than  anyone  who  lived  in  his  day, 
either  educated  or  uneducated.  That  to  me  is  the  great- 
est wonder,  the  most  difficult  thing  to  explain,  because  he 
said: 

"I  never  went  to  school  more  than  six  months  all 
told." 

He  never  had  a  slate  or  a  slate  pencil,  as  a  pupil  he  never  had 
any  paper  or  a  lead  pencil,  but  he  would  go  to  the  open  fire  and 
take  out  a  piece  of  charcoal,  whittle  it  to  a  point  for  his  pencil, 
and  then  on  the  back  of  the  fire  shovel  he  would  figure;  or  he 
would  go  out  and  get  a  board,  and  with  a  draw-knife  shave  it 
smooth,  and  then  write  and  figure  on  that.  You  who  are 
familiar  with  his  life  will  recall  him  lying  flat  on  his  back  in 
the  floorless  cabin,  with  his  head  next  to  the  fire,  by  the  light 
of  a  burning  knot,  and  there  under  those  circumstances  taking 
his  first  lesson  in  English.  If  you  were  at  the  British  Museum 
to-night,  and  should  call  for  the  finest  short  speech  ever  spoken 
in  the  English  language,  the  highest  authority  in  English  in 
the  world  would  hand  to  you  at  once  a  speech  that  I  could  now 
repeat  in  three  minutes  and  which  begins: 

"Four  score  and  seven  years  ago  our  fathers  brought 
to  this  Continent  a  new  nation  conceived  in  liberty 
and  dedicated  to  the  proposition  that  all  men  are  created 
equal,"  and  so  on. 


402  NATIONAL   REPUBLICAN   CLUB 

If  you  should  proceed  in  the  address  you  would  reach  the 
point  where  he  says: 

"The  world  will  little  note,  nor  long  remember,  what 
we  say  here,  but  it  will  never  forget  what  they  did 
here." 

That  master  of  English  thus  spoken,  pronounced  to  be  the 
finest  short  speech  in  the  English  language,  was  not  a  Shake- 
speare, was  not  a  Milton,  was  not  an  Emerson.  He  was  the  un- 
educated plainsman  of  the  West,  Abraham  Lincoln,  at  Gettysburg. 

I    am   of   the    opinion    that    while   that    is    the    high    water 
mark    in    the    expression    of   Abraham    Lincoln,    there    is    one 
sentence,   if  not   the   finest   example   of  the   balanced   sentence 
from  the  standpoint  of  rhetoric  was  found  in   his   speech   de- 
livered  sixty-four  years   ago  this   month  in  the   City  of  New 
York,    the    first    time    he    spoke    in    the    east.      After    having 
won  a  remarkable  reputation  in  Illinois,  having  come  on  into 
Indiana  and  Ohio,  he  was  invited  by  the  forward  looking  ele- 
ment of  this  city  to  come  here  to  the  metropolis.    He  was  escorted 
to  the  platform  by  Horace  Greeley,  and  David  Dudley  Field,  and 
the  president  of  the  meeting  was  none  other  than  William  CuUen 
Bryant,  who  introduced  this  westerner  as  a  distinguished  citizen 
of  the  United  States.    He  made  this  address  in  Cooper  Union,  re- 
garded to-day  as  the  finest  example  of  the  balanced  sentence  that 
is  found  among  the  choice  specimens  of  rhetoric.     Ladies  and 
gentlemen,  up  to  that  time  the  issue  was  not  very  clearly  drawn, 
but  after  he  had  spoken  here  there  was  no  further  doubt.     I  re- 
call two  sentences.     Referring  to  the  right  and  the  wrong  he 
said: 

"Did  we  think  slavery  right,  we  could  concede  all  that 
the  South  wants.    Did  they  concede  it  wrong,  they  could 


ADDRESS  OF  HON.  SIMEON  D.  FESS  403 

accept  what  we  demand;  but  our  thinking  it  wrong  and 
their  thinking  it  right  is  the  precise  point  upon  which 
turns  the  whole  controversy.  Thinking  it  wrong,  as  we 
do,  we  can  afford  to  leave  it  in  the  states  where  it  is 
protected  under  the  Constitution,  but  thinking  it  wrong 
as  we  do,  can  we  afford  to  allow  it  to  exend  into  the  new 
territory?" 

There  was  the  whole  issue  clearly  stated  in  but  a  single  sen- 
tence, and  after  Abraham  Lincoln  had  spoken  in  Cooper  Union 
in  this  city  there  was  no  longer  any  doubt  as  to  who  was  the 
leader,  and  what  was  the  issue  to  be  fought. 

It  was  on  the  4th  of  March,  1865,  that  Mr.  Lincoln  delivered 
what  I  regard  as  the  high  water  mark  of  Lincolnian  expression. 
He  had  a  background  of  four  years  of  war,  he  had  been  called 
all  the  bad  names  that  could  be  expressed  in  language.  He  had 
been  bitterly  assailed,  and  in  the  face  of  this  storm  of  abuse,  this 
even-tempered,  mild-mannered  leader,  expressed  the  convictions 
of  a  nation  in  a  prose  poem: 

"Fondly  do  we  hope,  fervently  do  we  pray,  that  this 
mighty  scourge  of  war  may  speedily  pass  away;  but  if 
it  be  God's  will  that  it  shall  continue  until  all  the  wealth 
that  has  been  piled  up  by  260  years  of  unrequited  toil 
shall  have  been  sunk  into  the  earth,  and  every  drop  of 
blood  that  has  been  drawn  by  the  lash  shall  be  repaid 
by  another  drop  drawn  by  the  sword,  yet  as  it  was  said 
centuries  ago,  it  still  must  be  said,  *His  judgments  are 
righteous  altogether.'  With  malice  toward  none" — no 
one  could  have  said  that  but  Lincoln  in  that  day — "With 
malice  toward  none,  with  charity  for  all,  with  firmness 
in  the  right  as  God  gives  us  to  see  the  right,  let  us  go 
on  and  finish  the  work,  to  bind  up  the  nation's  wounds, 
to  care  for  the  fatherless  and  the  widows,  and  for  him 
who  has  borne  the  brunt  of  battle,"  and  so  on.  t 


404  NATIONAL   REPUBLICAN   CLUB 

That  was  pronounced  the  day  after  it  was  uttered,  or  soon 
after  it  was  uttered,  by  the  London  Times,  as  the  most  sublime 
utterance  of  the  century,  and  in  my  judgment  it  is  the  high  water 
mark  of  all  the  utterances  of  this  remarkable  man.  Yet  in  1858 
he  had  said  in  an  apologetic  manner,  "I  am  not  educated,  I  do  not 
speak  good  English,  and  probably  I  was  misunderstood  in  what 
I  meant  to  say." 

The  secret  of  this  man's  power  is  the  subject  of  much  specula- 
tion. I  think  that  Charles  A.  Dana  expressed  it  when  he  said 
that  the  power  of  Abraham  Lincoln  was  in  his  control  of  men; 
and  when  he  was  asked  what  were  the  elements  that  gave  Lin- 
coln that  control,  his  reply  was,  ^'A  combination  of  wonderful 
humor  and  a  depth  of  pathos."  Both  of  these  qualities  are  won- 
derfully pre-eminent  in  the  life  of  this  remarkable  man. 

I  think  I  know  two  of  the  elements  that  the  world  will  accept 
as  being  fundamental  and  most  significant  in  the  life  of  Lin- 
coln. The  first  was  his  wonderful  faith  that  right  will  triumph 
in  a  contest  with  wrong.  He  had  faith  in  the  people.  He  never 
feared  that  the  people  enlightened  would  go  wrong.  The  second 
was  his  remarkable  faith  in  God.  Now,  I  speak  as  a  layman,  as 
a  student  of  his  character.  I  believe  that  I  may  assert  with 
fair  accuracy  that  many  great  religious  natures  have  occupied 
the  presidential  chair,  but  no  one  with  a  profound  religious  nature 
like  that  of  Abraham  Lincoln.  I  think  he  was  the  most  pro- 
foundly religious  man  that  ever  occupied  the  presidential  chair. 
He  left  us  when  he  was  but  56,  and  yet  he  was  called  "Old  Abe 
Lincoln,"  dead  and  gone.  "Hurrah,  hurrah,"  was  the  note  of 
his  enemies  when  he  left  his  field  of  activity.  Our  country  has 
gone  on  for  more  than  sixty  years,  or  about  sixty  years,  since  he 
left  us.  We  have  had  great  men  to  take  his  place.  Our  party 
is  to  be  congratulated  upon  the  numerous  successors  that  have 


ADDRESS  OF  HON.  SIMEON  D.  FESS  405 

filled  this  oflElce.  I  think  since  that  day  there  has  been  probably 
the  most  wonderful  period  in  the  evolution  of  industrial  neat- 
ness that  the  world  has  ever  seen,  and  we  have  had  marvelously 
complicated  problems.  It  seems  to  me  to-day  that  our  problems 
never  have  been  more  complicated,  and  we  have  never  had  greater 
need  for  men  of  the  type  of  Abraham  Lincoln. 

Ladies  and  gentlemen,  even  at  the  risk  of  saying  what  might 
seem  to  be  not  in  the  best  taste,  I  want  to  say  that,  measured 
from  the  standpoint  of  problems  complicated  both  in  number  and 
degree,  measured  by  the  great  and  brilliant  solution  of  those 
problems,  the  administration  that  now  is  in  charge  at  the  Capitol 
of  our  nation  will  not  suffer  in  comparison  with  anything 
that  has  ever  gone  before  it.  When  the  dispassionate  judg- 
ment of  the  American  people,  removed  from  the  nearness  of  the 
problem,  is  made  up,  I  know  that  I  am  speaking  now  the  verdict 
of  history,  American  history  will  give  to  our  Secretary  of 
State  the  highest  rank  for  brilliancy  and  achievement  in  our 
foreign  affairs  that  America  has  yet  produced.  No  bit  of  news 
that  has  come  from  official  quarters  has  left  greater  distress  of 
mind  and  disappointment  than  the  announcement  that  the  pres- 
ent Secretary  of  State  will  not  continue  in  his  official  position 
after  the  end  of  his  administration.  The  nation  can  ill  afford  to 
lose  the  services  of  one  whom  I  regard  as  the  most  brilliant  Sec- 
retary of  State  in  the  history  of  American  diplomacy. 


CHARLES  E.  HUGHES 

Secretary  of  State  in  Harding  administration. 
Twice  Governor  of  New  York.  Justice  of  the  "United 
States  Supreme  Court.  Republican  candidate  for 
President  in  1916,  receiving  254  electoral  votes  as 
against  277  for  Wilson;  Chairman  of  the  Conference 
on  Limitation  of  Armament  in  Washington.  Presi- 
dent of  the  New  York  Union  League  Club,  1917-19. 
Born  in  Glens  Falls,  N.  Y.,  April  11,  1862.  Lives  in 
New  York  City. 


Address  of 

HON.  CHARLES  EVANS  HUGHES 


Mr.  President,  fellow  members  of  the  Republican  Club,  ladies  and 
gentlemen : 

It  is  very  good  to  come  home.  It  was  under  such  tender  min- 
istrations that  I  had  my  political  birth,  and  it  will  be  the  great- 
est happiness  to  expire  officially  in  your  arms. 

We  honor  the  memory  of  Lincoln  for  his  inestimable  services 
in  saving  the  Union  at  once  undivided  and  with  a  new  birth  of 
Freedom,  for  the  beacon  light  of  his  humanity.  He  was  so 
abundantly  representative  that  he  stands  alone.  He  is  our  ideal 
and  our  test.  The  test  is  not  one  of  achievement,  but  of  equality. 
Washington  gave  us  our  country,  but  not  only  did  he  give  us  the 
country,  he  endowed  it.  We  do  not  have  to  fight  over  the  battles 
of  the  Revolution,  but  we  are  ever  on  the  battlefield  where  we 
need  his  poise,  his  dignity,  his  incorruptibility,  his  genius  for 
leadership.  Lincoln  not  only  saved  the  Unon,  but  he  incarnated 
the  spirit  which  alone  can  preserve  the  Union.  How  many  proph- 
ecy in  his  name,  and  in  his  name  attempt  to  cast  out  devils  and 
do  mighty  works,  devils  sometimes  attempting  to  cast  out  devils; 
but  how  few  who  inscribe  their  name  upon  his  banners  emulate 
his  patience,  his  love  of  the  tests  of  reason,  his  magnanimity; 
how  few  there  are  to  illustrate  the  balanced  judgment  which  was 


408  NATIONAL   REPUBLICAN   CLUB 

made  possible  by  his  acumen,  his  sympathy,  his  clarity,  his  humor  ? 

The  value  of  this  anniversary  is  to  bring  us  to  the  measurement 
of  our  attainments.  Peoples  have  struggled  for  freedom  and  to 
maintain  freedom  and  have  had  their  soldiers  and  their  enthusi- 
asts and  their  martyrs  and  their  dictators,  but  there  is  but  one 
Lincoln,  because  he  was  at  once  the  brain  and  the  heart  of  de- 
mocracy. 

Since  Lincoln's  time  we  have  tripled  our  population,  and  mul- 
tiplied many  times  our  national  wealth.  But  how  shall  we  preserve 
these  advantages?  Let  me  go  back,  Senator  Fess,  many  years 
before  Lincoln  said  that  he  was  not  a  master  of  English,  to  a 
speech  that  he  made  as  a  young  man,  only  28  years  of  age,  in 
which  he  said,  "At  what  point  is  the  approach  of  danger  to  be 
expected?  I  answer,  if  it  ever  reaches  us,  it  must  spring  up 
amongst  us;  it  cannot  come  from  abroad.  If  destruction  be  our 
lot,  we  must  ourselves  be  its  author  and  finisher.  As  a  nation  of 
free  men  we  must  live  through  all  time,  or  die  by  suicide." 

We  do  not  propose  to  commit  suicide,  but  if  we  preserve  our 
advantages  it  will  be  because  we  have  organization,  because  we 
have  organic  life,  because  we  appreciate  the  essentiality  of  in- 
stitutions, because  we  realize  the  advantages  of  the  institutions 
we  possess. 

Who  are  those  who  would  disturb  our  peace?  We  cannot  af- 
ford to  look  with  unconcern  upon  the  organized  efforts  that  are 
being  made  to  poison  the  minds  of  our  youth  upon  whom  we  must 
depend  for  the  preservation  of  our  institutions,  who  would  seek 
them  in  their  experience,  who  would  lead  them  to  menace  their 
own  future.  What  do  they  want?  Do  they  desire  security? 
Where  else  in  the  world  can  they  find  the  security  that  they 
enjoy  here?  Wherever  their  ideas  prevail,  there  in  exactly  like 
proportion  is  life  secure  only  as  it  is  lived  in  subservience  to 


ADDRESS  OF  HON.  CHARLES  EVANS  HUGHES  409 

tyranny.  True,  we  need  to  perfect  the  instrumentalities  of  our 
security.  We  need  a  better  administration  of  justice,  we  need 
improvement  in  our  criminal  procedure,  we  need  a  greater  respect 
for  law,  and  a  greater  desire  to  be  obedient  to  law  as  the  neces- 
sary expression  of  the  democratic  will,  not  as  imposed  upon  us 
from  without.  We  need  respect  for  law,  because  it  repre- 
sents the  genius  of  our  Constitution,  which  is  that  we  shall 
live  under  law.  Security?  Who  would  look  for  security  in  dis- 
integration ? 

Is  it  liberty  that  is  desired?  But  this  is  the  land  to  which  the 
oppressed  of  all  lands  would  flee.  Here  we  have  liberty  of  speech, 
and  liberty  of  assembly,  to  the  very  limit  of  tolerance  consistent 
with  the  existence  of  organized  authority  itself.  We  have  an  un- 
censored  press.  We  have  the  liberty  to  go  about  freely  without 
espionage,  without  restraint.  Here  we  have  the  liberty  of  wor- 
ship, to  follow  the  dictates  of  our  own  conscience,  the  liberty  of 
education,  opportunities  free  to  all. 

Now,  I  know  there  are  many  who  chafe  under  restraints  that 
they  do  not  like,  but  bear  in  mind  that  these  restrictions  are  im- 
posed through  the  operation  of  laws  adopted  according  to  con- 
stitutional methods,  and  neither  in  their  genesis  nor  in  their 
purpose  have  they  the  slightest  resemblance  to  the  manifold  im- 
positions of  despots  who  seek  to  entrench  themselves  in  power. 
This  is  yet,  and  will  be,  the  land  of  liberty. 

Is  it  opportunity  that  is  desired?  It  lies  on  every  hand.  The 
only  threat  there  is  to  liberty  is  the  danger  of  undermining  the 
confidence  which  is  the  vital  breath  of  enterprise.  There  is  one 
delusion  that  some  seem  to  be  unable  to  escape,  and  that  is  that 
labor  can  exist  without  labor.  Labor  here  has  greater  ad- 
vantages in  its  circumstances,  in  its  conditions,  in  its  rewards, 
than  it  has  ever  enjoyed  in  the  history  of  the  world.    Every  lover 


410  NATIONAL   REPXTBLICAN   CLUB 


of  mankind  desires  to  put  an  end  to  abuses,  to  correct  conditions 
that  are  regrettable.  In  every  community  groups  are  at  work 
studying  these  conditions,  endeavoring  to  improve  the  social  hy- 
giene, and  opportunity  was  never  so  lavish. 

Is  it  justice  that  is  wanted?  Who  shall  dispense  it?  Shall 
it  reside  in  the  caprices  of  officials,  or  shall  we  follow  our  tradi- 
tion and  our  practice  of  having  a  system  of  law  administered  by 
men  of  utmost  impartiality  and  with  sound  learning,  a  system  of 
law  which  may  be  corrected  and  modified  by  the  representatives 
of  the  people  ?  We  need  to  improve  the  furnishings  of  our  house, 
but  we  do  not  propose  to  tear  down  our  house,  or  have  it  torn 
down  by  those  who  do  not  like  houses. 

;  Xet  us  be  grateful  for  the  measure  of  progress  that  has  been 
achieved  as  we  look  about  for  further  opportunities.  When  I 
was  a  boy  in  this  city  you  could  see  on  election  day  on  many  a 
corner  voters  openly  bought  and  marshalled  as  they  were  pur- 
chased, to  the  ballot  box.  Such  a  thing  as  that  could  not  be  seen 
to-day,  and  there  are  many  here  who  have  forgotten  that  it  ever 
existed,  and  perhaps  have  never  known  that  it  existed.  I  have 
seen  it  myself  as  a  youthful  and  entirely  unofficial  observer.  We 
have  made,  when  you  consider  conditions  in  earlier  days,  the 
greatest  progress,  so  that  it  can  be  said,  that  whatever  our  dif- 
ficulties may  be,  and  they  are  numerous  enough,  they  are  due  less 
than  ever  either  to  political  despotism,  or  to  political  corruption. 
We  live  at  a  time  when  we  are  witnessing  the  distress  of  democ- 
racy, the  distress  of  representative  government.  Numerous  par- 
ties, the  difficulty  of  maintaining  coalitions,  the  general  dissatis- 
faction with  the  accomplishments  of  weak  administrations,  have 
put  parliamentary  government  to  a  very  severe  test,  a  test  which 
in  some  countries  it  is  unable  to  meet.  Pure  democracy,  of  course, 
is  impossible  with  vast  populations,  and  if  representative  govern- 


ADDRESS  OF  HON.  CHARLES  EVANS  HUGHES  411 

ment  fails,  there  is  no  alternative  to  dictatorship.  In  this  coun- 
try, as  my  learned  friend,  the  Senator  from  Connecticut  has  ob- 
served— and  I  observe  with  delight  that,  having  accomplished 
miracles  in  uncovering  the  treasures  of  ancient  Peru,  he  is  now 
digging  down  to  discover  the  very  treasures  of  the  Constitution — 
we  have,  as  he  has  indicated,  the  greatest  possible  safeguards 
against  danger,  because  through  our  system  of  distributive  powers 
we  have  avoided  as  far  as  possible  the  risk  of  a  total  loss;  but,  we 
have  the  most  complicated  arrangement  of  government  on  earth, 
and  if  these  safeguards  are  to  be  preserved  they  must  be  studied 
and  appreciated.  We  have  states  because  we  had  colonies,  first  col- 
onies and  then  states,  with  their  separate  traditions,  with  their 
jealousies,  with  their  determination  to  be  the  supreme  sovereign 
so  far  as  the  interests  of  their  local  administration  are  concerned. 
Let  us  be  thankful,  let  us  be  thankful  that  while  these  divisions 
into  states  may  seem  to  be  artificial,  we  should  recognize  that 
they  are  unchangeable  because  founded  in  sentiment  and  prac- 
tice, buttressed  so  that  they  cannot  be  shaken.  Let  us  be 
thankful  that  they  provide  for  decentralization  of  govern- 
ment. No  one  who  looks  upon  Congress  would  desire  to 
add  burdens  to  those  bent  shoulders.  They  have  all  they  can 
stand  in  Washington,  and  we  must,  as  has  been  observed  by 
Senator  Bingham,  do  all  we  can  not  merely  to  maintain  the 
theory  of  the  state  within  the  province  of  the  state.  It  does  no 
violence  whatever  to  the  theory  of  the  Union  within  the  range  of 
national  exigency  and  required  power;  but  let  us  understand  that 
the  theory  of  the  state  must  be  backed  up  and  supported  by  prac- 
tice in  the  state  to  give  efficient  local  government.  The  reason 
so  many  turn  to  Washington  is  that  they  are  disappointed  at 
home.  But,  let  me  observe  further,  that  if,  for  example, 
the    citizens    of   New   York   City   have    not    organizing    ability 


412  NATIONAL   REPUBLICAN   CLTIB 

and  interest  enough  in  civic  affairs  to  look  after  their  obvious 
needs,  their  most  apparent  and  essential  needs,  they  have  no  oc- 
casion to  talk  about  lost  motion  at  the  Capitol  of  the  country. 
We  have,  thank  God,  a  judicial  system — and  I  don't  think 
the  people  of  this  country  have  ever  appreciated  it  more 
than  at  this  time.  I  think  that  the  Supreme  Court  is  safe 
for  a  long  time  to  come  against  the  attacks  of  demagogues. 
I  do  not  agree  with  those  who  think  that  it  is  necessary  to  popu- 
larize it.  It  stands  there,  informed  by  experience  and  learning, 
as  the  best  devisable  method  to  maintain  the  balance  of  the  Con- 
stitution both  with  respect  to  local  government  and  the  federal 
government,  and  with  respect  to  the  guaranteed  rights  of  individ- 
uals. Let  us  appreciate  our  system,  not  simply  as  theory,  but 
because  in  practical  working  it  gives  us  a  balance  of  competing 
interests,  it  gives  us  a  sense  of  social  security,  and  it  protects  us 
against  the  extreme  hazards  of  law  which  we  see  in  every  country 
which  depends  upon  a  centralized  government  and  a  parliamen- 
tary system. 

In  the  speech  to  which  I  referred  a  moment  ago,  young  Lin- 
coln said  that  we  must  supply  the  pillars  of  the  temple  of  liberty 
hewn  out  of  the  solid  quarry  of  sober  reason.  If  we  preserve 
our  advantages  in  the  future  it  will  not  be  because  of  the  re- 
sources of  mine,  or  of  forest;  it  will  not  be  because  of  our  skill 
in  agriculture  or  in  industry  or  in  the  arts ;  it  will  be  because  we 
have  a  talent  for  organized  effort,  it  will  be  because  we  are  able 
to  work  together  to  obtain  results.  The  test  will  be  in  our 
temper,  in  our  reasonableness,  and  the  great  lesson  for  America 
to-day,  it  seems  to  me,  is  a  very  simple  one,  to  be  reasonable  in 
dealing  with  one  another.  We  have,  I  know,  the  extreme  diffi- 
culties that  are  created  by  vituperative  assault,  but  even  they 
create  less  danger,  they  are  less  dangerous  than  ever  before. 


ADDRESS  OF  HON.   CHARLES  EVANS  HUGHES  413 

We  are  growing  in  the  grace  of  reasonableness.  Observe  our 
newspapers.  Now,  I  would  not  accuse  our  newspapers  of  any 
undue  reticence  or  excessive  sobriety  in  statements,  but  when  you 
consider  the  earlier  days,  and  the  rancor  that  was  exhibited,  we 
have  reason  to  be  gratified  that  many  of  our  leading  journals  not 
only  in  their  news  columns,  but  in  their  editorial  comments,  show 
a  desire  to  be  fair  to  opponents,  show  the  desire  to  give  truth  its 
chance  to  be  mighty  and  prevail.  We  had  occasion  not  long  ago, 
at  the  last  election,  to  test  the  extent  to  which  the  American  peo- 
ple liked  vituperative  politics.  They  voted  on  that  proposition, 
and  they  voted  it  down. 

And,  what  could  be  more  heartening  than  to  see  the  forces  of 
discontent  routed  in  the  interest  of  the  candidacy  of  a  man  of 
the  old  fashioned  virtues  and  sobriety  and  serenity  and  common 
sense — Calvin  Coolidge.  But,  to  be  reasonable  requires  not 
simply  regard  for  facts,  desire  to  ascertain  the  facts,  but  it 
requires  sustained  attention.  The  former  is  easy;  the  latter 
in  these  days  of  fleeting  observation,  of  many  enticements  and 
diversions,  is  quite  difficult.  Even  in  the  newspaper  world  what 
is  three  months  old  is  new.  Nearly  every  day  I  am  asked  about 
matters  which  have  been  fully  disclosed  long  ago.  Unintelligent 
discussion  thrives  upon  poor  memories. 

If  you  will  observe,  if  you  are  watchful,  you  will  note  that 
those  who  wish  to  make  the  worse  appear  the  better  reason  lie 
very  low  while  the  facts  are  being  developed,  and  then,  after  the 
facts  are  all  published  and  attention  is  taken  up  with  some  other 
matter,  come  out  with  their  mischievous  statements  and  half 
truths,  relying,  too  frequently  with  success,  upon  the  lack  of 
memory  of  a  busy  people. 

If  I  may  be  pardoned  for  a  digression,  I  suppose  nothing  was 
ever  so  publicly  stated  and  discussed  as  the  Naval  proposals  at 


414  NATIONAL   REPUBLICAN   CLUB 

the  Washington  conference.  At  the  very  beginning  of  that  con- 
ference the  American  delegation  set  forth  its  proposals,  stated  not 
generally  but  in  detail,  what  ships  were  to  be  scrapped,  what  ships 
were  to  be  retained,  the  parties  to  the  agreement,  and  in  all 
particulars  giving  the  theory,  the  principle,  the  actual  concrete 
example  of  its  obligation  with  respect  to  the  proposed  agreement 
for  the  limitation  of  armament.  The  proposal  went  throughout 
the  world,  was  discussed  not  only  in  foreign  offices  but  discussed 
in  every  newspaper  and  periodical,  taken  up  by  every  expert. 
Three  months  were  spent  in  the  consideration  of  the  proposals, 
then  there  was  a  treaty,  a  treaty  publicly  stated,  its  terms  given, 
the  technical  naval  details  worked  out  by  experts  and  presented. 
Then  the  treaty  with  the  report  of  the  American  delegation  went 
to  the  Senate,  and  was  there  debated  and  approved  by  a  vote  of 
74  to  1,  with  the  remaining  20  on  record  in  favor  of  it.  You  would 
think  that  was  publicity  to  the  nth  power,  you  could  not  conceive 
of  greater  publicity,  or  anything  more  thoroughly  understood, 
and  yet  for  months  wC  have  been  treated  to  news  items,  to  syn- 
dicate articles,  to  editorials  proceeding  on  the  assumption  that 
the  American  people  either  knew  nothing  about  it,  or  had  entirely 
forgotten  what  they  had  learned.  But,  some  things  do  stick.  The 
difficulty,  as  I  was  pointing  out,  is  not  in  giving  information  to  the 
public  so  much  as  in  halving  it  stick.  What  shall  we  have?  Not 
merely  a  generous  disposition  to  be  all  things  to  all  men,  not  an 
open  mindedness  with  the  receptivity  of  a  sieve.  We  want  some- 
thing that  will  be  retained,  something  that  can  be  built  upon. 
Senator  Fess  eloquently  alluded  to  Abraham  Lincoln's  poverty 
of  opportunity  in  his  youth.  Well,  that  poverty  of  opportunity 
had  a  corresponding  advantage  in  that  while  he  did  not  have 
much  to  learn  with,  what  he  did  learn  he  never  forgot.  I  wish 
that  more  of  our  young  men  could  go  to  that  school.    We  need  to 


ADDRESS  OF  HON.  CHARLES  EVANS  HUGHES  415 

repeat  his  reasonableness.  That  is  what  we  need  so  conspicuously 
in  our  international  relations.  John  Bassett  Moore,  the  distin- 
guished editor  sitting  in  the  Permanent  Court  of  International 
Justice,  skid  a  profound  thing  when  he  said,  "International  Wars 
will  cease  when  Civil  Wars  cease.  Within  the  state  there  is  legal 
organization  and  sanction  beyond  anything  yet  put  forth  in  the 
international  sphere,  while  the  very  phase  'civil'  implies  that  war 
it  outlawry."  If  there  is  a  disposition  that  will  keep  peace  among 
mankind  it  must  be  shown,  and  will  first  be  shown,  in  the  main- 
tenance of  domestic  tranquility.  How  much  we  need  this  spirit 
of  reasonableness  in  our  attitude  toward  foreign  peoples!  We 
have  a  desire  to  be  a  leader  in  this  hemisphere,  to  promote  the 
cause  of  peace,  but  to  accomplish  that  purpose  we  must  show  our 
respect  for  our  neighbors.  We  must  recognize  and  show  by  our 
practice  that  we  do  recognize  their  independence.  We  must  give 
them  wise  and  impartial  as  well  as  friendly  counsel.  We  wish  to 
avoid  entanglements  and  committments  throughout  the  world. 
Why  ?  Not  that  in  some  contingency  that  may  arise  we  will  have 
an  arbitrary  choice.  Quite  the  contrary,  that  we  may  in  any 
contingency  that  may  arise  speak  as  an  enlightened  people  ac- 
cording to  our  sense  of  duty,  unfettered  by  committments  made 
at  a  time  which  could  not  take  that  contingency  into  account. 
We  need,  as  we  look  over  the  world,  to  recognize  that  our 
independence  is  not  to  satisfy  our  pride,  but  to  give  us  opportunity 
— and  it  is  a  great  opportunity  we  have,  with  an  unmistakable 
influence,  because  we  can  co-operate  throughout  the  world  with  a 
detachment  and  freedom  from  age-long  national  and  racial  ambi- 
tions, can  make  our  contribution  wherever  we  can  do  so,  without 
forfeiting  our  just  independence.  Oh,  if  the  turbulent  spirits 
who  strive  to  foment  ill  will,  to  turn  friends  into  enemies,  to  set 
up  barriers  between  well-disposed  peoples  by  lying  imputations  of 


416  NATIONAL   REPUBLICAN   CLUB 

improper  motive,  would  only  be  quiet,  if  we  could  have  advisers 
who  would  be  as  astute  to  get  us  out  of  trouble  as  they  are  to  put 
us  into  trouble,  if  those  who  voice  their  patriotism  the  loudest 
would  do  less  harm  to  their  country;  if  we  could  have,  not  an  ig- 
noble pacifism  or  a  truculent  chauvinism,  but  simply  a  noble  rea- 
sonableness, no  bounds  could  be  set  to  the  just  influence  of  this 
country  in  its  foreign  relations. 

In  conclusion,  let  me  point  to  the  words  of  Lincoln,  in  that 
speech  which  he  made  as  a  young  man,  one  of  the  best  speeches 
that  he  ever  made,  in  which  he  said  that  our  fathers  had  had  the 
task  of  possessing  this  goodly  country  and  of  erecting  here  the 
political  edifice  of  liberty,  that  it  was  ours  to  see  that  the  former 
never  received  the  foot  of  an  invader,  and  that  the  latter  was 
never  torn  by  usurpation  or  weakened  by  decay,  and  that  we 
should  hand  on  these  institutions  to  the  latest  generation  that 
fate  might  make  it  possible  for  the  world  to  know,  and  this,  he 
cried,  justice  to  ourselves,  gratitude  to  our  fathers,  regard  for  our 
posterity,  love  for  our  species  in  general,  requires  us  with  im- 
perative duty  to  perform. 


President  Coolidge  sent  the  following  letter 


The  commemoration  by  the  National  Republican  Club 
of  President  Lincoln's  birthday  is  always  a  notable 
event,  and  I  wish  you  would  number  me  among  those 
who  will  present  their  felicitations  at  the  gathering  to- 
morrow evening.  The  club  has  made  a  continuing  and 
highly  important  contribution  to  maintaining  the  high- 
est appreciation  of  the  splendid  American  tradition 
which  the  immortal  work  of  Lincoln  has  left  to  the 
Nation. 

CALVIN  COOLIDGE. 


THE    FORTIETH 

ANNUAL  LINCOLN  DINNER 

of  the 

NATIONAL  REPUBLICAN   CLUB 

At  the  Waldorf-Astoria 

FEBRUARY  12,  1926 


Addresses  of 
HON.  JAMES  M.  BECK 
HON.  JOHN  MacCRATE 


JAMES  K.  BECK 

Pormer  Assistant  Attorney  General  and  Solicitor 
General.  Native  of  FMladelphia.  Noted  author, 
scholar  and  orator. 


ADDRESS   OF 


HON.  JAMES  M.  BECK 


Mr.  President,  ladies  and  gentlemen:  While  it  is  a  great  satis- 
faction to  me  to  break  bread  again  with  my  fellow  members  of 
the  Republican  Club,  yet  I  have  some  sad  thoughts  to-night  in 
recalling  one  who  has  so  often  graced  this  board  and  delighted 
the  members  of  the  National  Republican  Club.  He  was  a  man 
"of  infinite  wit  and  of  most  excellent  fancy."  The  humor  of 
Abraham  Lincoln,  his  homely  but  sagacious  common  sense,  and 
above  all  his  moral  courage,  also  characterized  in  a  high  degree, 
our  late  fellow  member,  Job  Hedges.     Peace  to  his  dust! 

This  is  a  day  of  sacred  memory.  Lincoln  has  reached  that 
stature  among  the  immortals  that  any  eulogy  would  be  an  idle 
superfluity.  One  need  only  say  of  him  as  he  in  turn  in  matchless 
phrase  said  of  Washington: 

"In  solemn  awe  pronounce  the  name  and  in  its  naked, 
deathless  splendor,  leave  it  shining  on." 

My  purpose  to-night  is  to  challenge  your  attention  for  a  little 
while  to  a  theme  suggested  by  the  memory  of  Lincoln,  and  I 
have  called  it  "Lincoln  and  Democracy,"  but  perhaps  a  better 
title  would  be  "The  Gettysburg  Address  Sixty-three  Years 
Later."  Before  doing  so,  let  me  say  a  word  in  passing  about 
that  Gettysburg  address. 


422  NATIONAL   REPUBLICAN   CLUB 

I  suppose  that  if  you  were  to  take  a  vote  of  a  thousand  of  the 
most  cultivated  men  in  our  English-speaking  world  as  to  the  five 
greatest  orations  in  the  English  language,  the  oration  at  Gettys- 
burg would  be  on  almost  every  list. 

I  remember  with  interest  reading  some  years  ago  in  the  "Lon- 
don Times"  that  Lord  Curzon,  himself  a  very  eloquent  man,  speak- 
ing at  Oxford  said  that  he  regarded  the  speech  at  Gettysburg, 
not  merely  as  one  of  the  great  speeches  of  the  world,  but  the 
supreme  classic  of  the  English  language. 

Now  this  is  so  not  simply  because  of  its  beautiful  diction,  nor 
because  it  contains  any  novel  thought,  for  there  is  no  idea  in 
the  Gettysburg  address  that  Pericles  did  not  anticipate  in  his 
immortal  oration  over  the  fallen  of  Marathon.  Webster,  already 
quoted  by  the  Brooklyn  jurist,  in  the  same  speech  from  which 
he  quoted,  said  that  the  three  essential  requisites  of  a  great  ora- 
tion were  the  man,  the  subject  and  the  occasion,  and  all  three 
were  united  on  that  November  day  in  1863,  the  man  bearing 
upon  his  stooping  shoulders  the  weight  of  an  agonized  country 
and  appealing  to  human  imagination  as  another  "Man  of  Sor- 
rows and  acquainted  with  grief"  was  the  man.  The  subject,  the 
undying  one,  the  beauty,  the  holiness  of  dying  for  one's  country; 
and  the  occasion,  the  dedication  of  a  cemetery,  for  he  stood  with 
the  ever-widening  rows  of  the  new-made  graves  of  the  fallen  at 
Gettysburg  about  him.  The  speech  contained,  as  you  will  recall 
only  367  words,  and  could  not  have  taken  more  than  a  few  min- 
utes in  its  actual  delivery.  (What  a  happy  after-dinner  talker 
Abraham  Lincoln  would  have  been!)  The  words  were  trans- 
figured by  the  three  requisites  to  which  Webster  referred,  for 
those  matchless  words  were  as  the  stained  glass  windows  of  a 
mediaeval  cathedral,  and  through  those  stained  glass  pieces  there 


ADDRESS  OF  HON.  JAMES  M.  BECK  423 

came  streaming  the  great  personality,  the  noble  occasion  and  the 
sublime  dignity  of  the  theme. 

Before  addressing  myself  to  that  phase  of  the  theme  in  which 
he  made  the  most  famous  and  undying  affirmation  of  his  belief 
in  Democracy,  I  cannot,  in  passing,  but  also  note  that  in  this 
speech  there  was  no  suggestion  of  that  spirit  of  perverted  pacif- 
ism now  so  audible  in  the  world,  which  condemns  war  without 
distinguishing  between  the  just  and  the  unjust.  We  need  his 
solemn  admonition  in  that  respect  to-day,  for  there  runs  through 
the  veins  of  all  the  great  allied  nations  in  the  great  war,  a  subtle 
poison,  the  suggestion,  as  we  are  increasingly  told,  that  there  was 
no  right  or  wrong  in  the  greatest  of  all  wars ;  that  all  the  nations 
were  blindly  plunged  into  that  vortex  by  "war  psychosis,"  or,  as 
some  say,  that  that  war  was  nothing  more  than  an  economic  fatal- 
ity. If  that  were  true,  the  World  War  was  the  supreme  tragedy 
of  all  mankind.  If  you  were  to  take  the  dead  of  America  alone, 
exceeding  120,000,  and  if  they  in  ghostly  array  were  to  start  at 
to-morrow's  dawn  to  march  from  the  Washington  Arch  to  Grant's 
Tomb,  the  sun  would  be  setting,  the  night  would  be  far  advanced 
before  the  last  of  the  heroic  victims  had  passed  a  given  point, 
and  if  you  were  to  take  the  dead  of  France,  and  if  they  marched 
in  a  similar  ghostly  array  under  the  Arch  of  Triumph  and  down 
the  Champs  Elysees,  it  would  take  fourteen  days  and  fourteen 
nights  before  the  last  dead  hero  had  passed  under  that  great 
arch  of  victory. 

Were  all  these  young  men,  who  went  out  in  the  May  morn  of 
their  youth  to  defend  a  cause  in  which  they  believed,  merely  the 
victims  of  a  delusion?  Is  the  noble  thought  of  the  poem 
'Tlanders  Field"  only  sentimental  folly?  Such  is  the  teaching 
of  contemporary  literature,  and  pacifist  plays  and  books  multiply 
to  show  the  needlessness  of  the  sacrice.    The  right  and  the  wrong 


424  NATIONAL   REPUBLICAN   CLUB 

are  being  ever  more  daily  confused,  but  there  are  some,  thank 
God,  who  believe  that  there  was  an  everlasting  right  and  an 
everlasting  wrong  in  that  struggle,  and  that  the  dead  who  fell 
in  it,  including  our  own  dead,  consecrated  the  ground  in  which 
they  lie  quite  as  much  as  the  fallen  at  Gettysburg. 

Lincoln  was  a  great  moralist.  The  dominant  note  of  his  ad- 
dress was  the  solemn  dedication  by  the  dead  of  the  living  to  what 
he  called  the  unfinished  task. 

He  called  upon  the  living  generation  and  upon  all  successive 
generations  to  take  a  high  resolve  "that  the  dead  shall  not  have 
died  in  vain — that  this  nation  under  God  shall  have  a  new  birth 
of  freedom  and  that  government  of  the  people,  by  the  people, 
and  for  the  people,  shall  not  perish  from  the  earth." 

This  exaltation  of  popular  government  was  not  original  with 
Lincoln,  even  in  its  literary  form.  Webster  had  used  substan- 
tially the  same  words  and  he,  in  turn,  had  been  anticipated  by 
John  Marshall.  All  three  simply  echoed  the  opening  words  of 
the  Preamble  to  the  iConstitution  of  the  United  States,  when,  as 
with  the  sonorous  blast  of  a  mighty  trumpet,  the  American  peo- 
ple said  for  the  first  time  in  history: 

*'We,  the  people  of  the  United  States,  in  order  to 
form  a  more  perfect  union,  establish  justice,  insure  do- 
mestic tranquility,  provide  for  the  common  defence,  pro- 
mote the  general  welfare,  and  secure  the  blessings  of 
Liberty  to  ourselves  and  our  posterity,  do  ordain  and 
establish  this  Constitution  for  the  United  States  of 
America." 

It  does  not  follow  that  Lincoln's  famous  phrase  as  to  "govern- 
ment of  the  people,  by  the  people  and  for  the  people"  is  a  mere 
flourish  of  rhetoric.  On  the  contrary,  it  had  at  the  time  it  was 
spoken,  a  terrible  significance.     The  hereditary  ruling  classes  of 


ADDRESS  OF  HON.  JAMES  M.  BECK  425 

nearly  every  European  nation  in  1862  and  1863  were  aiming  by 
secret  diplomacy  to  destroy  this  Kepublic  by  open  intervention. 
They  had  determined  that  government  of  and  by  the  people 
should  perish  from  the  earth.  The  thunder  of  Meade's  cannon 
was  America's  answer  and  when  the  last  echo  died  away  in  the 
distant  hills,  Lincoln  could  proudly  say  that  "government  of  the 
people,  by  the  people  and  for  the  people — all  the  foreign  intrigues 
to  destroy  this  republic  to  the  contrary  notwithstanding — shall 
not  perish  from  the  earth." 

When  the  framers  of  the  Constitution  uttered  in  trumpet  tones 
the  words,  "We,  the  people  of  the  United  States,  do  ordain  and 
establish  *  *  *  this  Constitution  for  the  United  States  of 
America,"  popular  government  was  not  the  accepted  common- 
place in  political  science  that  it  has  since  become.  The  American 
people  then  were  under  the  age-long  feudalistic  conception  that 
in  some  individual  or  class  there  existed  by  divine  command,  and 
as  an  hereditary  privilege,  that  supreme  power  which  we  call 
"sovereignty,"  and  that  the  rights  of  the  people  were  only  such 
as  the  Sovereign  might,  by  grace,  concede,  or  such  as  could  be 
wrung  from  him  by  force.  With  the  Declaration  of  Independ- 
ence one  hundred  and  fifty  years  ago,  we  rejected  the  idea  of 
sovereignty.  The  word  will  not  be  found  in  either  the  Declara- 
tion or  the  Constitution.  It  was  "We,  the  people,"  that  ordained. 
The  idea  of  a  separate  sovereignty  thereupon  became  non-existent 
for  us. 

Two  epoch-making  changes  were  then  beginning — the  age  of 
the  machine  and  the  age  of  democracy,  and  between  them  there 
is  a  very  close  relation.  A  century  and  a  quarter  passed,  and  at 
the  beginning  of  the  World  War  the  conception  of  the  sovereignty 
of  the  people  was  almost  universally  accepted  in  Western  civili- 
zation, even  though  the  form  of  government  might  be  that  of  an 


426  NATIONAL   REPUBLICAN   CLUB 

empire  or  a  monarchy.  Democracy  had  become  the  great  ideal, 
a  "pillar  of  cloud  by  day  and  a  pillar  of  fire  by  night"  to  the 
struggling  masses  of  the  old  world,  and  when  our  War  President 
gave  an  inspiring  call  to  battle  in  1917,  when  he  said  that  the 
"World  must  be  made  safe  for  democracy,"  he  received  an  answer- 
ing echo  from  other  lands  than  our  own.  And  yet  this  effective 
war  shibboleth,  this  very  effective  shibboleth  of  President  Wil- 
son, contained,  however,  one  philosophical  error.  It  assumed  that 
democracy  was  an  end,  of  which  the  world  is  simply  the  means, 
whereas,  in  truth,  the  welfare  of  the  world  is  the  end  and  democ- 
racy is  but  a  means.  Forms  of  government  are,  in  themselves, 
never  ends,  but  merely  means,  and  there  is  at  least  a  half  truth 
in  Pope's  famous  couplet: 

"For  forms  of  government  let  fools  contest; 
That  which  is  best  administered,  is  best." 

The  greatest  of  all  teachers  said  of  another  human  institution 
that  the  Sabbath  was  made  for  man  and  not  man  for  the  Sab- 
bath, and  truly  we  could  paraphrase  it  and  say  that  democracy 
is  made  for  man  and  not  man  for  democracy. 

When  the  greatest  war  of  history  had  ended,  and  the  roar  of 
the  last  gun  on  the  long  battle  line  had  died  away  in  distant 
echoes,  it  seemed  indeed  that  "government  of  the  people,  for  the 
people,  and  by  the  people"  had  been  vindicated  and  that  the 
world  had  been  made  "safe  for  democracy."  Never  in  a  thou- 
sand years  had  there  been  such  a  dissolution  of  ancient  forms. 
Crowns  had  fallen  "thick  as  autumnal  leaves  that  strew  the 
brooks  of  Vallambrosa."  Ancient  dynasties  perished;  kingdoms 
fell  and  empires  of  a  thousand  years  vanished  into  thin  air.  In- 
deed, as  President  Wilson  passed  through  Europe  and  the  masses 
arose  to  acclaim  him  with  hysterical  enthusiasm,  it  seemed  as  if 


ADDRESS  OF  HON.  JAMES  M.  BECK  427 

the  existing  governments  of  even  the  victorious  nations  were 
crumbling. 

And  then  a  mighty  change  came  over  the  world's  dream  of 
democracy.  A  reaction,  swift  and  terrible,  against  parliamentary 
government,  through  which  alone  democracy  can  ever  function, 
swept  over  the  world  like  the  shadow  of  a  huge  eclipse.  Eussia 
destroyed  the  rule  of  the  Czars,  but  substituted  a  class  tyranny 
infinitely  worse  than  the  rule  of  the  worst  of  the  Czars.  China 
became  a  Republic  in  form  and  to-day  half  a  dozen  would-be  dic- 
tators are  struggling  for  supremacy.  Italy  accepted  the  rule  of 
a  dictator,  who,  however  beneficent  his  autocratic  rule  may  be, 
loses  no  occasion  to  flout  democracy.  Spain  accepted  the  rule  of 
a  military  dictator,  and  now  democracy  has  yielded  to  a  dictator 
in  Greece,  the  very  land  that  gave  us  not  only  the  idea  but  the 
very  word  democracy. 

What  is  more  significant  is  the  disintegration  of  parliamentary 
government  in  three  governments  that  are  in  form  democratic. 
In  Germany,  the  paralysis  of  parliamentary  institutions  is  such 
that  its  President  has  threatened  a  dictatorship  unless  the  state 
of  political  chaos  is  brought  to  an  end.  In  France,  there  have 
been  three  Cabinets  in  less  than  a  year  and  for  want  of  a  gov- 
ernment that  will  function,  the  talk  of  a  dictator  grows  ever 
more  ominous.  But  more  amazing,  England,  the  mother  of  de- 
mocracies and  which  alone  among  all  the  great  nations  has  in  the 
last  decade  become  in  form  more  democratic  than  any  other  na- 
tion, is,  in  fact,  trembling  at  the  possible  domination  of  a  Labor 
oligarchy,  which  disdains  the  organ  of  democracy,  the  ballot 
box,  and  prefers  to  work  its  will  by  "direct  action,"  an  euphoni- 
ous term  for  choking  the  community  into  submission  by  a  threat 
of  starvation. 

To-day,  one  hundred  and  fifty  years  after  the  Declaration  of 


428  NATIONAL   REPUBLICAN   CLUB 

Independence,  almost  sixty-tliree  years  after  Lincoln  spoke  at 
Grettysburg,  democracy  seems  to  be  in  more  serious  danger  than 
at  any  time  since  Jefferson,  like  Chanticleer,  proclaimed  its  red- 
dening morn. 

Human  progress  moves  in  a  constant  series  of  ascending  and 
descending  curves,  or,  to  change  the  metaphor,  its  forces  are  at 
times  centripetal,  and  at  times  centrifugal.  Man  has,  through- 
out all  history,  passed  through  a  ceaseless  cycle  of  integration 
and  disintegration.  Every  age  that  has  been  marked  by  the  con- 
centration of  power  in  the  hands  of  a  few  has  been  followed  by 
a  redistribution  of  that  power  among  the  many  and,  in  turn, 
every  democratic  movement,  when  it  has  spent  its  force,  has  been 
succeeded  by  a  period  of  the  integration  of  absolutism. 

I  could  take  English  history,  but  I  would  not  weary  you  with 
it,  and  show  that  from  the  time  of  William  the  Conqueror  there 
was  the  ceaseless  process  of  integration  and  disintegration. 

No  present  fact  is  more  signi^cant  than  the  reaction  in  many 
nations  against  democracy  and  in  favor  of  one-man  power.  It 
matters  not  whether  the  one  man  be  called  a  czar,  emperor,  king 
or  dictator — ^the  essential  fact  is  his  power.  To-day  half  of  the 
oldest  nations  of  Europe  are  in  the  grasp  of  dictators.  The  revolt 
is  not  against  democracy  as  a  social  ideal,  for  it  was  never  of 
more  vital  influence  in  that  respect,  but  against  the  inefSciency, 
and  at  times  venality  of  parliamentary  forms  of  government. 
The  World  War  has  revealed,  as  in  a  vast  illumination,  the  fact 
that  democracy  is  not  workable  unless  there  be  a  people  who 
are  politically  capable  of  self-government.  The  founders  of  our 
nation  recognized  this.  Washington,  Franklin  and  Hamilton 
all  said  that  the  success  of  the  government  they  had  just  created 
would  depend  far  more  upon  the  people  than  upon  the  wisdom 
of  the  Constitution.    If  people  fail  to  take  an  intelligent  interest 


ADDRESS  OF  HON.  JAMES  M.  BECK  429 

in  their  government,  and  if  they  are  unprepared  to  show  the 
spirit  of  self-restraint,  which  I  have  elsewhere  called  ^'constitu- 
tional  morality,"  there  can  be  no  successful  democracy. 

Moreover,  as  we  all  know,  democracy  must  necessarily  de- 
pend to  some  extent  upon  its  machinery.  It  can  only  be  effective 
through  a  system  of  two  parties,  and  not  through  more.  The 
moment  that  the  people  disintegrate  into  blocs,  it  is  not  the  rule 
of  the  majority,  which  we  call  democracy,  that  prevails,  but,  in- 
evitably, the  rule  of  the  minority. 

Nothing  more  strikingly  illustrates  this  than  the  political  his- 
tory of  England  in  the  last  fifty  years.  In  form  it  has  grown 
increasingly  democratic.  The  electorate  has  increased  in  a  cen- 
tury from  500,000  to  21,000,000,  and  the  power  of  hereditary 
privilege,  as  centered  in  the  Crown  and  House  of  Lords,  is  al- 
most non-existent.  The  disintegration  in  England  in  recent  years 
of  the  party  system  into  at  least  three  blocs,  has  resulted  in 
minority  rule,  for  the  conservative  government  of  Bonar  Law 
and  the  labor  government  of  Ramsey  MacDonald  only  represented 
a  minority  of  the  people,  even  as  Mr.  Wilson's  first  election  was 
the  act  of  a  minority  only.  The  recent  history  of  England,  more- 
over, shows  more  strikingly  than  that  of  any  other  nation  the 
portentous  threat  to  democracy  of  the  disintegration  of  the  peo- 
ple into  classes.  The  labor  movement  in  England,  like  that  of 
the  Soviets  in  Russia,  has  long  since  lost  its  faith  in  the  ballot- 
box  or  in  democracy.  The  Labor  Party  believes  in  direct  action, 
meaning  thereby  the  coercion  of  the  nation  by  a  threat  to  de- 
stroy the  necessities  of  existence  by  a  general  strike.  The  trans- 
port workers,  the  railway  workers  and  the  miners  form  a  power- 
ful triple  alliance,  and  have  shown  in  recent  years  their  power  to 
dictate  to  the  government  and  even  to  control  its  foreign  policies. 
When  the  Bolshevists  were  at  the  gates  of  Warsaw  in  1920,  the 


430  NATIONAL   REPUBLICAN   CLUB 

"triple  alliance"  notified  the  government  that  if  it  aided  Poland, 
there  would  be  a  general  strike  in  England  and  at  once  the  gov- 
ernment succumbed.  A  similar  threat  a  few  years  ago  resulted 
in  compulsory  action  by  the  government  to  compel  the  owners  of 
the  mines  to  give  up  for  three  months  their  profits  and  the  gov- 
ernment granted  a  subsidy  to  the  miners  of  $50,000,000  to  keep 
the  peace.  Last  summer  a  like  threat  was  used  to  compel  the 
nationalization  of  mines  and  railways,  and  all  that  the  impotent 
government  could  do  was  to  purchase  a  peace  until  next  May,  by 
a  subsidy  to  the  miners  of  nearly  $100,000,000. 

Let  no  one  in  this  country  be  blind  to  the  fact  that  a  successful 
revolution  in  England  through  this  power  of  direct  action  might 
have  a  significant  repercussion  in  this  country,  and  might  destroy 
that  "government  of  the  people,  by  the  people,  and  for  the  peo- 
ple," of  which  Lincoln  spoke,  and  for  which  he  gave  his  hearths 
blood. 

It  is  easy  for  a  people  to  be  content  with  popular  government 
when  prosperity  is  general.  Let  there  be  in  this  nation  a  pro- 
longed period  of  adversity  and  our  institution  will  be  brought 
to  a  real  test  and  the  prophecy  of  Lord  Macaulay,  voiced  nearly 
seventy  years  ago,  may  have  a  terrible  vindication. 

Nor  have  we  wholly  escaped  the  destructive  effect  upon  democ- 
racy of  the  bloc  system  in  politics.  Much  legislation  and  even 
amendments  to  the  Constitution  have  been  forced  through  under 
the  threat  of  vigorous  and  well-organized  minorities,  which  either 
held  the  balance  of  power,  or  threatened  public  men  with  defeat 
unless  they  voted  against  their  conscience. 

Let  us  not  lay  the  "flattering  unction  to  our  souls"  that  we 
have  finally  and  completely  solved  the  great  problem  of  popular 
government.  It  is  still,  to  use  the  words  of  Lincoln,  "an  unfin- 
ished task,"  and  to  it  the  living,  from  generation  to  generation, 


ADDRESS  OF  HON.  JAMES  M.  BECK  431 

must  still  dedicate  themselves.  Our  institutions  are  not  static 
but  always  in  a  state  of  flux.  The  sound  instinct  of  the  Ameri- 
can people  still  accepts  democracy.  In  determining  its  merits, 
regard  must  be  had  for  what  might  be  called  the  ponderables 
and  the  imponderables.  Measured  by  the  ponderables  and  the 
waste,  the  inefficiency  and  at  times  the  gross  corruption,  democ- 
racy has  shown  in  large  cities,  which  are  little  better  than  run- 
ning sores — I  say,  measured  by  those  ponderables  many  thinking 
men  would  wonder  whether  democracy  may  not  be  something  of 
a  delusion;  but  the  American  people  believe  in  democracy,  be- 
cause of  a  great  imponderable.  What  led  Lincoln  to  believe  in 
it,  namely,  that  it  is  the  only  form  of  government  that  is  con- 
sistent with  the  self-respect  of  a  proud  and  a  great  people;  that 
it  gives  hope  to  the  masses  and  raises  them  in  intellectual  and 
moral  stature.  The  average  man,  even  though  plunged  in  a  slough 
of  despond  of  an  inefficient  and  at  times  corrupt  government,  yet 
he  sees  with  the  faith  of  Lincoln,  beyond  him  the  delectable 
mountains,  and  he  struggles  out  of  the  morass  and  struggles  on 
to  the  heights  beyond.  Such  was  the  spirit  of  Washington  and 
Lincoln,  and  it  is  this  invincible  faith,  triumphing  over  fear,  that 
has  made  them  the  two  great  leaders  of  democracy,  and  as  long 
as  democracy  can  produce  such  products,  it  simply  vindicates 
itself. 

Let  me  call,  if  I  may,  your  attention  to  this  very  striking  fact, 
although  it  is  probably  familiar  to  most  of  you.  The  first  Presi- 
dential election  that  I  ever  took  an  interest  in  was  the  Tilden- 
Hayes  campaign.  I  followed  it  with  profound  attention,  and, 
with  the  plastic  memory  of  youth,  I  can  remember  almost  every 
important  detail  in  it.  In  the  election  of  1876,  82  per  cent  of 
the  electorate  voted;  in  1896,  only  80  per  cent  voted;  in  1900, 
73  per  cent  voted;  in  1908,  66  per  cent  voted;  in  1912,  62  per 


432  NATIONAL   REPUBLICAN   CLUB 

cent  voted;  in  1920,  the  percentage  had  fallen  to  48  per  cent, 
although  the  fundamental  principles  of  the  Constitution  were  un- 
der direct  challenge  by  Senator  LaFollette,  and  in  1922,  38  per 
cent  of  the  electorate  voted.  In  other  words,  from  1876  until  1922, 
the  percentage  of  American  citizens  who  took  enough  interest 
to  put  a  piece  of  paper  in  the  ballot  box  once  a  year  had  shrunk 
from  82  per  cent  to  38  per  cent.  You  may  say  that  is  in  large 
part  accounted  for  by  the  fact  that  woman  suffrage  is  a  novelty. 
Well,  England  has  woman  suffrage ;  Germany  has  woman  suffrage, 
and  at  the  last  Parliamentary  election  in  those  two  countries,  80 
per  cent  of  the  English  electorate  voted,  and  in  Germany  89  per 
cent.  You  know  the  fact  is  that  citizens  can  be  divided  into  two 
classes.  I  sometimes  call  them  the  Philip  Nolans  and  the  Nathan 
Hales.  Philip  Nolan,  you  remember  the  man  in  the  story  of 
Edward  Everett,  "The  Man  Without  a  Country,"  who  damned 
his  country  and  was  condemned  to  be  carried  forever  during  his 
lifetime  upon  a  warship,  and  the  officers  and  the  crew  that  car- 
ried him  in  that  endless  journey  up  and  down  the  seas  of  the 
earth  were  forbidden  even  to  mention  the  name  of  the  United 
States  in  Philip  Nolan's  presence,  and  when  he  died  he  said  that 
his  punishment  was  greater  than  he  could  bear,  and  he  begged 
them  to  bring  to  his  bedside  the  flag  of  the  country  upon  which 
he  had  spat,  and  he  reverently  kissed  its  folds.  There  is  more 
than  one  way  of  damning  a  country.  A  man  can  damn  his  coun- 
try by  neglecting  to  vote.  That  is  a  very  slight  service.  He  can 
damn  his  country  by  taking  no  interest  whatever  in  public  af- 
fairs, and  allow  the  swift  current  to  go  on  to  the  inevitable  abyss 
if  the  people  of  the  country  do  not  awaken  to  their  responsibili- 
ties. A  smug  man,  who  has  filled  his  granaries  with  wealth,  and 
who  cares  nothing  for  anything  except  the  protection  of  that 
wealth,  as  to  which  he  regards  the  Constitution  of  the  United 


ADDRESS   OF   HON.   JAMES   M.   BECK  433 

States  as  a  kind  of  a  haven  of  refuge  that  will  protect  him;  that 
man  who  does  not  lift  a  finger,  even  on  election  day,  to  cast  a 
ballot,  but  prefers  to  spend  it  on  the  golf  links,  he  damns  his 
country  quite  as  effectually  as  Philip  Nolan. 

Then  as  to  the  Nathan  Hale.  I  want  to  tell  you  a  story  about 
Nathan  Hale,  because  it  so  beautifully  illustrates  the  ideal  for 
which  Lincoln  stood.  A  man  of  affairs  once  told  me  this  story. 
He  was  a  man,  if  I  mentioned  his  name,  would  be  very  well 
known  to  most  of  my  audience.  He  was  motoring  through  Con- 
necticut, as  I  recall  the  story,  with  three  or  four  other  men  of 
affairs.  All  of  them  were  self-made  men.  All  of  them  had  be- 
come exceedingly  successful,  measured  by  the  dollar  standard,  and, 
after  the  fashion  of  self-made  men,  they  were  rather  self-com- 
placently  talking  of  their  respective  careers,  and  what  a  wonder- 
ful ascent  they  had  made  up  the  ladder  of  success,  and  my  friend 
told  me  that  suddenly  he  saw  silhouetted  across  the  sky  the 
bronze  figure  of  a  young  man  with  his  arms  behind  his  back,  and 
they  stopped  the  motor  car,  and  they  went  up  to  look  at  it,  to 
see  what  the  statue  was,  and  they  found  the  man's  arms  were 
tied  behind  him.  It  was  young  Nathan  Hale  upon  the  scaffold, 
and  they  read  upon  the  pedestal  his  dying  words,  "My  only  re- 
gret is  that  I  have  but  one  life  to  give  to  my  country,"  and  my 
friend  told  me  that  he  and  his  fellow  men  of  affairs  were  so 
ashamed  of  their  habit  of  boasting  and  their  complacency  about 
their  extraordinary  skill  in  the  amassing  of  their  millions,  when 
they  saw  what  this  simple  boy  a  hundred  and  more  years  ago 
had  done,  and  how  he  had  glorified  his  sacrifice  by  words  that 
a  Lincoln  would  have  appreciated  more  than  anyone  else,  that 
the  self-praise  stuck  like  Macbeth's  amen  in  the  throat. 

I  have  trespassed  too  long,  but  just  one  final  thought  in  con- 
nection with  this  problem,  this  everlasting  problem,  this  unfin- 


434  NATIONAL   EEPUBLICAN   CLUB 

ished  problem,  not  of  making  the  world  safe  for  democracy  quite 
as  much  as  making  democracy  safe  for  the  world,  and  making  it 
promotive  of  the  public  welfare.  Let  me  then  simply  say  in  con- 
clusion that  it  must  also  be  remembered  that  the  comparative 
success  of  popular  government  in  America  is  due  in  large  part — 
I  would  say  in  most  part  —  to  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States,  which  is  not  either  wholly  democratic  or  wholly  undemo- 
cratic. That  great  charter  of  government  rejected  the  idea  of 
the  Divine  right  of  democracy — ^that  is,  the  Divine  right  of  the 
majority  to  rule  under  all  conditions  and  under  all  circumstances. 
It  did  provide  as  a  matter  of  necessity  that  within  a  limited 
sphere  of  action,  the  rule  of  the  majority  should  take  effect  until 
that  vote  was  reversed,  but  with  respect  to  the  foreign  relations 
of  our  government,  for  example,  the  majority  should  not  rule, 
but  only  such  a  preponderating  majority  as  would  command  two- 
thirds  of  the  Senate,  and  as  for  reforming  the  structure  of  the 
government,  the  highest  exercise  of  popular  power  to  determine 
the  form  of  government  under  which  we  live,  that  great  Con- 
stitution said  there  should  be  no  change  in  what  had  been  so 
wisely  devised  in  1787,  unless  the  majority  was  so  enormously 
preponderating  that  three-fourths  of  the  States  of  the  Federal 
Union  would  concur  in  it.  Democracy  was  further  restrained 
by  checks  and  balances,  by  our  system  of  fixed  tenures,  and  above 
all,  by  that  great  power  that  makes  our  form  of  government  the 
envy  of  the  world,  the  power  of  the  Supreme  Court,  its  power 
as  the  great  conscience  of  the  nation  to  say  to  any  act  of  Con- 
gress, even  though  it  were  passed  unanimously  by  Senate  and  by 
the  House  and  signed  by  the  President  of  the  United  States,  yet 
if  it  transgresses  the  Constitution,  the  Supreme  Court  has  the 
power  to  say  that  such  a  law,  passed  with  seeming  or  nominal 
unanimity,  is  null  and  void.    Abraham  Lincoln  devoutly  believed 


ADDRESS  OF  HON.  JAMES  M.  BECK  435 

that  the  Constitution  was  the  whole  law  and  the  prophet  of  free 
government.  His  faith  in  that  Constitution  has  been  amply  vin- 
dicated, for  in  all  the  violent  storms  of  the  last  twenty-five  years, 
which,  as  I  have  said,  have  swept  away  kingdoms  and  empires 
as  dust  before  the  wind,  in  all  the  tremendous  convulsions  of  this 
most  hectic  period  in  human  history,  the  most  stable  government, 
the  least  unchanged  government  has  been  that  of  the  Constitu- 
tion of  the  United  States.  To-day  it  is  the  oldest  written  com- 
prehensive form  of  government  in  the  world.  The  stream  of  time 
that  has  washed  away  the  dissoluble  fabric  of  other  paper  con- 
stitutions has  left  untouched  its  adamantine  strength.  "We,  the 
people,"  thus  begins  the  preamble — "We,  the  people,  ordain  this 
Constitution,  and  we,  the  people,  must  preserve  it."  Well  can 
we  recall  on  Lincoln's  birthday  his  concluding  address  at  Gettys- 
burg : 

"Let  us  hereby  highly  resolve  that  these  dead  shall  not  have 
died  in  vain;  that  this  nation  under  God  shall  have  a  new  birth 
of  freedom,  and  that  government  of  the  people,  by  the  people  and 
for  the  people  shall  not  perish  from  the  earth." 


JOHN  HacCRATE 

Justice  of  the  New  York  Supreme  Court.     Popular 
Brooklyn  orator.    Member  of  65th  Congress. 


ADDRESS   OF 


HON.  JOHN  MacCRATE 


Mr.  Toastmaster  and  ladies  and  gentlemen:  A  year  ago  I  was 
able  to  escape  inflicting  this  agony  on  you  and  on  myself.  I 
served  in  the  Congress  with  Simeon  D.  Fess,  now  Senator  from 
Ohio.  When  I  was  asked  to  speak,  I  said  to  your  committee, 
"There  is  no  man  in  the  country  who  has  made  a  more  thorough 
study  of  the  life  of  Abraham  Lincoln  than  Fess."  You  asked 
me  to  come,  and  I  thought  I  had  gotten  rid  of  your  committee 
forever.  I  am  sorry,  and  I  know  when  I  am  finished  you  will  be 
sorry  that  they  did  not  get  rid  of  me  and  I  of  them.  It  is  an 
awful  place  to  go  and  get  a  speaker  for  a  great  dinner — that  is, 
to  Brooklyn,  a  place  where  men  find  the  hour  of  eleven  o'clock 
the  hour  for  retirement — to  come  over  to  the  metropolitan  city 
and  on  an  occasion  in  this  great  hotel  to  attempt  to  stand  where 
men  contemporaneous  with  and  friends  of  Lincoln  stood;  those 
who  served  with  him  in  high  places,  those  who  bore  the  brunt 
of  battle;  those  who  helped  carry  his  dead  body  to  the  grave  at 
Springfield — to  stand  in  such  a  place  under  such  circumstances 
would  awe  even  men  who  thought  themselves  qualified  to  speak. 
I  have  read  the  list  of  those  who  on  other  occasions  have  ad- 
dressed you.  I  find  none  of  them  an  immigrant,  and  perhaps  I 
might  stir  up  your  minds  by  way  of  remembrance  by  giving  you 
the  impression  that  an  immigrant  has  of  this  man  that  you  call 


438  NATIONAL   REPUBLICAN   CLUB 


the  saviour  of  the  Eepublic,  and  we  call  the  inspirer  of  youth. 
When  he  was  nominated  for  the  Presidency,  his  friends  in 
New  York  selected  Thomas  Hicks  to  make  a  portrait.  He  went 
to  Springfield  and  stayed  there  for  several  days.  When  the  por- 
trait was  finished  it  was  brought  back  to  New  York,  and  Horace 
Greeley  looked  at  the  head  and  said,  "That  is  a  head  to  go  to  the 
country  with";  and  Hicks  relates  that  when  he  had  finished  the 
portrait,  he  turned  to  Abraham  Lincoln  and  said,  ''You  are  to  be 
the  next  President  of  the  United  States  of  America,  and  the  peo- 
ple would  like  to  know  the  place  you  were  born,"  and  Hicks 
says,  "There  came  across  that  melancholy  face  a  look  I  had  not 
theretofore  seen,  as  if  he  were  searching  back  through  the  years 
and  seeing  things  that  other  men  had  not  seen,  and  then  he  took 
a  memorandum  book  and  wrote,  'I  do  not  know  the  exact  place 
where  I  was  born,  since  my  parents  are  dead,  but  it  was  on 
Nolan's  Creek.' "  I  have  often  wondered  what  was  the  thought 
that  flashed  through  the  brain  of  Lincoln  when  they  asked  him 
the  question:  "Where  were  you  born?"  Perhaps  it  was  that  he 
saw  again  the  form  of  Nancy  Hanks,  and  heard  her  beautiful 
voice  tell  him  childhood's  tales,  and  he  thought  it  was  an  awful 
long  way  from  Nolan's  Creek  and  Kentucky  to  become  the  candi- 
date of  a  great  party  for  the  Presidency,  and  oft  I  am  reminded 
that  the  father  of  the  man  is  indeed  the  boy,  and  you  who  would 
understand  and  seek  to  understand  Lincoln  the  man,  can  never 
forget  that  Nancy  Hanks  died  when  he  was  eight  years  of  age, 
and  the  tear  tracks  on  that  boy's  face  were  never  laughed  away 
as  long  as  he  lived,  and  when  you  read  his  first  inaugural  ad- 
dress and  hear  him  say,  "The  mystic  chords  of  memory  stretching 
from  every  battlefield  and  patriot  grave,"  you  must  also  think 
of  him  as  seeing,  tied  with  the  mystic  chords  of  memory,  that 
mother's  grave  in  Indiana,  and  whatever  men  may  say  of  the 


ADDRESS   OF   HON.   JOHN   MacCRATE  439 

father  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  he  himself  did  say,  "All  that  I  am 
I  owe  to  her."  This  lad,  who  lost  his  mother  in  youth,  had  a 
wistful  look.  Walt  Whitman  never  bent  the  knee  to  humans; 
this  vagabond  among  the  poets  and  writers  of  America,  never 
truckled  to  men  in  high  place,  yet  he  said,  '*When  I  looked  upon 
that  dark  brown  face  and  that  wistful  eye,  I  had  never  seen  the 
artist  who  had  caught  its  full  significance.  It  needed  the  master 
hand  of  two  or  three  centuries  ago  to  take  from  off  that  face 
and  place  on  canvas  that  wistful  look."  The  wistful  look  of  a 
boy  who,  early  lost  his  mother,  wooed  by  immortality  early  in 
life,  that  wooing  continued  until  the  bullet  of  Booth  carried  him 
through  the  gates  of  immortality;  and  as  you  think  of  Nancy 
Hanks,  let  me  remind  you  of  another  boyish  incident  in  the  life 
of  this  man,  carried  out  eventually  when  manhood's  estate  had 
been  reached.  They  asked  him  one  time,  "Do  you  remember  the 
War  of  1812?"  and  he  answered,  so  say  Nicolay  and  Hay,  only 
this:  'I  had  been  fishing  and  I  had  caught  a  little  fish,  and  I 
was  on  the  road  home  with  the  fish,  and  I  met  a  soldier,  and 
because  I  had  been  taught  at  home  always  to  be  good  to  soldiers, 
I  gave  him  the  fish."  From  Kentucky's  creek  to  the  banks  of 
the  Potomac  and  the  District  of  Columbia  was  carried  this  teach- 
ing of  his  home,  always  to  be  good  to  soldiers,  and  when  you  read 
those  messages  that  gave  Stanton  so  much  agony,  for  reprieve 
here  and  pardon  there,  it  is  well  to  remember  that  on  the  road 
from  Nolan's  Creek  with  one  fish,  he  gave  that  fish  to  a  soldier. 
And  with  all  the  supplies  of  a  great  nation  at  his  command,  he 
fed  the  Army  and  Navy  of  the  Union,  blessed  by  the  memory  of 
a  deed  of  a  lad,  barefooted,  with  but  a  single  fish.  This  lad  with 
his  one  fish,  and  the  soldier  on  the  creek  in  Kentucky,  starts  out 
in  life,  as  I  have  said,  with  tear-stained  cheeks,  and  starts  amidst 


440  NATIONAL   REPUBLICAN   CLUB 


privation,  and  he  chose  for  his  poet  the  poet  Burns,  the  plowman 
poet  of  Ayr,  who  said: 

"In  poverty's  low,  barren  vale  fog,  mists  obscure,  in- 
volve me  'round; 
Though  oft  I  cast  a  wistful  eye,  nae  ray  of  fame  was 
ever  found." 

And  who  did  also  declare  that: 

"Dunghiirs  sons,  dirt  and  mire, 
May  to  patricians'  rights  aspire." 

And  who  exultingly  called  out: 

*^Ye  see  yon  birkie  ca'd  a  lord, 

Wha  struts,  and  stares,  and  a'  that; 
Though  hundreds  worship  at  his  word. 
He's  but  a  coof  for  a'  that." 

And  then  this  poet,  Lincoln,  through  his  life  found  in  love  and 
in  politics  the  sentiments  which  he  himself  held,  and  he  with 
Burns  rebelled  against  that  righteous  rigidness,  majestic  though 
it  be,  but  the  majesty  which  it  possesses  is  the  cold  majesty  of 
the  glacier  or  the  iceberg.  The  God  of  those  rigidly  righteous 
was  the  God  only  of  the  winter  time,  and  never  the  God  of  the 
springtime  and  the  flowers,  and  Lincoln  found  in  the  wild  utter- 
ances of  the  young  Burns  a  hearty  response  to  his  own  rebellion 
against  the  religion  that  has  not  charity,  and  never  knew  the 
precept,  "Let  him  that  is  without  sin  cast  the  first  stone." 

But  not  only  this  poet  Burns  was  woven  into  the  life  of  this 
lad  Lincoln,  but  early  he  came  across  another  poem  by  another 
Scotchman,  and  that  was: 

"Oh,  why  should  the  spirit  of  mortal  be  proud?" 


ADDRESS   OF   HON.   JOHN   MacCRATE  441 

My  friends,  from  the  day  he  first  learned  that,  I  am  told,  until 
his  death  closed  his  lips,  he  repeated  it  far  more  than  any  other 
poem,  even  those  of  Shakespeare  whom  he  also  loved  and  knew 
by  heart;  and  you  remember  the  last  two  sentences  of  that  poem 
are: 

"Yea!  hope  and  despondency,  pleasure  and  pain, 
We  mingle  together  in  sunshine  and  rain, 
And  the  smile,  and  the  tears  and  the  songs  and  the 

dirge,  ; 

Shall  follow  each  other,  like  surge  upon  surge. 
'Tis  the  wink  of  an  eye; 
'Tis  the  draught  of  a  breath, 

From  the  blossom  of  health  to  the  paleness  of  death; 
From  the  gilded  salon  to  the  bier  and  the  shroud — 
0,  why  should  the  spirit  of  mortal  be  proud?" 

Into  his  life  went  this  poem  and  all  of  its  significant  expres- 
sions forming  the  two-sided  man  that  America  afterward  learned 
to  love — the  man  most  practical  in  his  politics,  with  a  mysticism 
such  as  men  in  monasteries  have. 

He  loved  the  real,  but  he  loved  also  the  ideal.  For  him  that 
which  is  must  be  recognized  and  dealt  with,  but  that  which 
ought  to  be  was  never  forgotten.  He  declared  in  a  letter  to  the 
companion  of  his  youth  and  the  counsellor  of  his  older  age,  "You 
and  I  both  unfortunately  dream  dreams  of  Elysium  that  nothing 
earthly  can  ever  hope  to  realize,"  and  yet  this  man  who  dreamt 
such  dreams  knew  intimately  the  practical  politics  of  his  day  as 
no  man  in  his  time  knew  those  politics.  When,  as  a  youth,  as  a 
member  of  the  State  Legislature  of  Illinois,  he  wrote  a  letter  like 
this: 

"I  have  tacked  a  rider  onto  a  bill  to  relocate  the  road 
from  New  Salem  to  your  township,  and  I  have  named 
you  as  one  of  the  Commissioners." 


442  NATIONAL   REPUBLICAN   CLUB 

His  was  not  that  morality  of  politics  which  denies  to  friends 
a  road  past  their  door,  if  that  road  is  just  as  good  as  a  road  past 
a  political  enemy's  door. 

And  this  characteristic  of  practical  gratitude  was  with  him, 
even  in  the  Presidency. 

You  remember  that  Senator  Sherman  of  Ohio  went  to  him  and 
said: 

"Mr.  Lincoln,  you  can't  remember  that  there  is  anyone  but 
old  line  Whigs  in  the  Republican  Party,"  and  he  became  sad 
and  said,  **Why,  they  are  all  old-time  friends  of  mine." 

And  you  remember  that  Charles  Dana  went  from  New  York 
to  him  and  said: 

"Mr.  Lincoln,  your  friends  in  New  York  think  that  you  do 
not  do  enough  for  them,"  and  he  said,  "Perhaps  that  is  so,"  and 
immediately  began  the  redistribution  of  the  patronage  of  the 
State. 

Lincoln  never  reached  the  time  when  he  believed  that  it  was 
good  morals  to  build  up  political  enemies  at  the  expense  of  your 
own  political  friends;  and  this  man  Lincoln,  as  a  candidate  for 
Congress  and  as  a  candidate  for  the  State  Senate,  knew  his  po- 
litical precincts  with  precision.  He  could  tell  you  the  number  of 
Whigs;  he  could  tell  you  the  number  of  Americans;  he  could  tell 
you  the  number  of  Know-Nothings  in  each  of  the  precincts  of  his 
Congressional  district  and  the  State  Senatorial  district. 

When  he  was  interested  in  the  candidacy  of  Fremont  for  the 
Presidency,  he  wrote  this: 

"There  are  seventy  papers  in  this  State  against  the  administra- 
tion," and  then  he  enumerated  the  ones  that  were  opposed  to 
Fillmore  and  those  that  were  opposed  to  Fremont.  This  man 
knew  that  government  can  never  be  administered  until  you  first 
win  the  elections  and  he  never  counted  it  beneath  the  virtues  of  a 


ADDRESS   OF   HON.   JOHN   MacCRATE  443 

man  to  know  how  to  win  an  election.     First  win  and  then  ad- 
minister was  the  rule  that  he  laid  down  for  his  followers. 

I  speak  this  wise,  my  friends,  on  this  occasion,  because  Lord 
Charnwood  in  his  biography  says; 

"It  was  a  perverse  fate  that  ever  preserved  the  letters 
of  Lincoln  in  which  he  dealt  with  political  machinery. 
Oh,  happy  the  fate  that  kept  this  man  human  in  the 
eyes  of  posterity.  Oh,  happy  the  fate  that  tells  the 
tale  that  this  man  believed.  He  never  counseled  his 
soul  when  he  came  in  contact  with  the  crowd.  He  be- 
lieved that  it  was  not  only  the  privilege,  but  the  duty 
of  the  man  who  aspires  for  administrative  place,  high 
or  low,  to  know  the  thoughts  of  the  common  people,  to 
know  even  the  lowliest  election  districts.  And  thus  this 
man  has  been  preserved  to  posterity  as  an  example  for 
all  who  aspire  for  place  and  power  in  the  republic." 

His  matchless  eloquence  was  not  the  creation  of  the  moment, 
but  in  the  campaigns  and  candidacies  for  local,  legislative,  State, 
Congressional  and  Senate  place,  he  moulded  the  phrases  that  made 
him  famous.  On  the  hustings  he  began  to  let  the  world  see  that 
the  man  ambitious  for  public  place  can  yet  keep  his  soul  clean 
from  disgusting  immorality,  and  blended  with  this  practical 
side  of  Lincoln  there  was  the  other  side,  the  ideal  side.  Webster 
was  his  ideal  of  eloquence.  Early  in  his  youth  he  had  learned 
from  Webster's  speeches  on  Washington  and  Adams  that  clearness, 
force  and  reasonableness  are  the  qualities  which  make  for  con- 
viction; that  true  eloquence  indeed  does  not  consist  in  words.  It 
cannot  be  brought  from  afar;  labor  and  learning  may  toil  for  it, 
but  they  will  toil  in  vain.  The  graces  taught  in  schools,  the 
costly  ornaments  and  contrivances  of  speech  shock  and  disgust 
men  when  their  lives,  and  the  fate  of  their  wives,  their  children 


NATIONAL   REPUBLICAN   CLUB 


and  their  country  hang  on  the  decisions  of  an  hour.  Often  words 
lose  their  force,  rhetoric  is  vain  and  elaborate  oratory  con- 
temptible. 

Lincoln,  taking  these  lines  from  Webster,  began  to  fashion  the 
speech  with  which  he  would  eventually  captivate,  not  only  the 
common  crowd,  but  the  intellects  of  the  world,  and  this  man  not 
only  took  from  Webster  the  lessons  in  oratory,  but  he  took  from 
Webster  the  principles  which  guided  him  in  his  constitutional 
attitude  subsequent  to  his  entrance  into  the  Presidency. 

Would  you  know  where  Lincoln  gathered  his  first  inaugural 
speech?  Then  read  this  March  7th  speech  of  Webster,  dedicated 
to  the  people  of  Massachusetts.    In  that  speech  Webster  declared : 

''There  can  be  no  such  thing  as  peaceable  secession. 
I  will  not  state  what  might  disrupt  the  Union,  but,  sir, 
I  see  as  clearly  as  I  see  the  sun  in  the  heavens  the 
result  of  that  disruption;  that  disruption  must  result  in 
war,  such  a  war  as  I  will  not  describe  in  its  two-fold 
character." 

And  then  Webster  said:  "What  am  I  to  be?  am  I  to  be  an 
American  no  more;  am  I  to  be  a  sectional  man;  am  I  to  be  a 
local  man;  am  I  to  be  a  separatist,  with  no  country  in  common 
with  these  men  who  gather  here?  Where  shall  the  flag  of  the 
Kepublic  remain?  Who  shall  gather  together  the  fabric  of  a  de- 
molished government?  Who  shall  reconstruct  the  stately  prin- 
ciples of  constitutional  liberty?  Who  shall  frame  together  the 
high  architecture  which  holds  together  national  sovereignty  with 
States'  rights,  individuality  secured,  with  popular  prosperity?" 

As  Lincoln  looked  out  delivering  his  first  inaugural  address, 
these  lines  of  Webster's  seemed  to  run  through  all  he  said.  Of 
course  it  was  Seward  who  supplied  the  "mystic  chords  of  memory" 
sentence  at  its  conclusion.     But  friends,  this  man  Lincoln,  the 


ADDRESS   OF   HON.    JOHN   MacCRATE  445 

idealist,  as  he  stood  there  with  outstretched  hands,  declaring 
that  these  mystic  chords  of  memory  would  yet  vibrate  again, 
was  looking  back  with  that  ideal  love  he  had  for  the  man  Wash- 
ington, for  the  man  of  revolutionary  days,  and  he  was  declaring 
in  that  sentence  his  hope  that  the  ambition  which  he  had  real- 
ized to  become  the  President  of  the  United  States  should  not  be 
frustrated.  To  be  the  President  after  the  struggle  of  a  life  and 
not  have  Kentucky  in  it,  was  a  vain  accomplishment,  and  as  he 
looked  out  on  that  assemblage,  the  idealist  was  attempting  to 
hold  together  the  Union  which  he  loved  more  than  life  itself, 
and  he  was  beckoning  to  the  spirit  of  Washington,  to  the  spirit 
of  Madison  and  Jefferson  in  Virginia,  to  the  spirit  of  "Old  Hick- 
ory" from  Tennessee  and  North  Carolina  and  South  Carolina. 
He  was  calling  for  Kentucky  to  hold  to  the  Union,  because  the 
idealism  of  his  life  could  not  conceive  of  a  world  in  which  the 
Union  he  loved  should  be  severed,  but  the  day  came  when  the 
idealism,  expressed  in  1858,  was  made  manifest.  In  1858  he  had 
declared  a  house  divided  against  itself  cannot  stand.  You  re- 
member Herndon  was  the  only  one  to  advise  him  to  deliver  that 
speech.  They  came  and  said,  "Lincoln,  you  are  a  fool;  it  will 
destroy  you;  it  will  destroy  the  party";  and  he  said,  "This  thing 
has  been  retarded  long  enough.  If  I  must  be  defeated  because 
of  this  speech,  let  me  go  down,  linked  to  truth,"  and  as  one  reads 
those  words  in  1858,  one  remembers  that  he  loved,  besides  the 
poet  Burns,  the  tinker  Bunyan,  and  he  had  read  and  memorized 
Bunyan's  "Pilgrim's  Progress,"  and  you  will  remember  that  they 
indicted  Christian  and  Faithful  because  they  had  caused  com- 
motions and  division  in  the  town,  and  they  brought  old  Faithful 
up  for  trial  and  the  pronouncement  of  judgment,  and  you  re- 
member what  Bunyan  says: 


446  NATIONAL   REPUBLICAN   CLUB 


''Now  Faithful,  speak  for  thy  God, 
Fear  not  the  wicked*s  malice  nor  their  rod, 
Speak  boldly  man,  the  truth  is  on  thy  side, 
Die  for  it  and  your  life  in  triumph  ride." 

And  then  Faithful  declared: 

"I  have  set  myself  against  that  which  has  set  itself 
against  Him  that  is  higher  than  the  house.'* 

And  there  we  have  the  book  of  his  boyhood,  idealized  and 
translated  into  those  memorable,  never-dying  words: 

"A  house  divided  against  itself  cannot  stand." 

And  whence  came  this  sentence?  In  his  youth  his  father  was 
a  carpenter.  On  the  plains  of  Palestine  another  carpenter's  son 
had  said  these  same  things:  "A  house  divided  against  itself  can- 
not stand,"  and  across  the  centuries  those  words  had  come  and 
hit  the  soul  of  another  carpenter's  son,  and  looking  on  the  rot- 
ten timber  of  slavery,  and  the  foundations  of  the  house  called 
America,  this  carpenter's  son  declared  it  could  not  stand  divided, 
and  launching  his  great  body,  and  soul,  and  brain,  against  the 
rotten  timber  of  slavery,  this  man,  the  carpenter's  son,  who  came 
out  of  Kentucky,  pushed  the  timber  out  of  the  house  called 
America,  and  the  idealism  that  was  rampant  in  his  youth  be- 
came glorified  and  victorious  in  his  age,  and  he,  the  carpenter's 
son,  laid  his  own  body  and  his  blood  between  the  parts  of  the 
house  and  cemented  it  so  that  it  shall  stand  forevermore. 

My  friends,  another  speaker  has  been  given  the  subject  of  Lin- 
coln and  Democracy.  I  will  not  trespass  further  on  your  time, 
but  I  simply  add  these  closing  words,  it  must  be  in  the  realm  of 
the  immortals  that  laughter  is  permitted,  and  if  it  is  permitted, 
to-night  Abraham  Lincoln  is  laughing  exceedingly. 


ADDRESS   OF   HON.   JOHN   MacCRATE  447 

The  other  day  in  Congress  and  the  Senate  they  passed  a  res- 
olution, calling  on  the  executive  to  do  something  with  reference 
to  the  coal  situation,  and  I  suppose  that  Abraham  Lincoln  to- 
night has  gone  down  the  corridors  of  the  halls  of  immortality 
and  found  Theodore  Roosevelt  or  some  other  man  like  him,  and 
said,  "They  are  still  playing  the  same  old  game  in  the  States; 
they  are  still  doing  the  same  old  things."  In  June  the  States' 
rights  people  declared  the  Federal  Government  has  no  right  to 
empty  our  beer  cans.  In  February  the  States'  rights  people  de- 
clared the  Federal  Government  ought  to  fill  our  coal  bins,  and  as 
one  who  comes  from  foreign  shores,  and  who  passed  from  the  steer- 
age through  this  gate  of  opportunity,  I  close  with  this  statement 
to  you,  my  good  friends :  You  need  not  fear  for  the  future  of  this 
Kepublic,  if  those  who  were  born  here  and  those  who  have  come 
here,  grasp  hand  and  hand  and  declare  as  they  look  upon  the 
house  no  longer  divided,  in  the  words  of  Webster,  "I  too,  thank 
God,  I  am  an  American." 


THE    FORTY-FIRST 

ANNUAL  LINCOLN  DINNEE 

of  the 

NATIONAL   REPUBLICAN   CLUB 

At  the  Waldorf-Astoria 

FEBRUARY    12,    1927 


Addresses  of 

HON.  WILLIAM  M.  CALDER 

HON.  CURTIS  D.  WILBUR 
HON.  FRANK  B.  WILLIS 

REV.  S.  PARKES  CADMAN,  D.D. 


WILLIAM  M.  CALDER 

President  of  the  National  Republican  Club.  Brook- 
lyn Congressman.  United  States  Senator  from  New 
York,  1917-1923. 


ADDRESS   OF 

HON.  WM.  M.  CALDER 

President  of  the  Club 


There  has  been  distributed  throughout  the  room  a  souvenir  of 
this  occasion,  in  which  is  incorporated  a  famous  Lincoln  manu- 
script. This  manuscript  is  an  exact  copy  of  the  speech  of  President 
Lincoln  at  the  White  House,  in  response  to  the  serenade  which 
occurred  two  days  after  his  second  election  in  1864.  It  is  a  rather 
historic  document,  which  I  am  sure  will  be  exceedingly  interest- 
ing, not  only  tonight,  but  as  the  years  go  by.  I  call  it  particu- 
larly to  your  attention,  because  I  am  sure  after  you  have  read  it, 
you  will  take  it  home  and  treasure  it  as  really  one  of  the  important 
events  of  this  occasion. 

For  forty-one  years  this  club  has  celebrated  the  birthday  of 
Lincoln.  We  have  gathered  at  this  board  America's  most  dis- 
tinguished citizens.  In  the  earlier  days  those  who  were  here  were 
Lincoln's  contemporaries.  In  later  years,  many  men  who  had  a 
part  in  maintaining  the  ideals  of  government  for  which  he  gave 
his  life.  The  men  who  founded  this  club  and  laid  down  the  policy 
of  keeping  alive  the  splendid  accomplishments  of  the  great 
Emancipator,  were  convinced  that  they  could  render  no  greater 
service  to  their  country  than  to  constantly  bring  home  to  the 
minds  of  our  youth  the  period  in  our  nation's  history  in  which 
Lincoln  was  the  all-important  factor.  We  have  had  here  during 
these  forty  years,  Presidents  Harrison,  McKinley,  Roosevelt,  Taft, 


452  NATIONAL   REPUBLICAN   CLUB 

Harding  and  Coolidge;  Governors  Morton,  Black,  Odell,  Hughes, 
Whitman  and  Miller;  Senators  Hiscock,  Evarts,  Warner  Miller, 
Depew,  Root,  and  the  present  distinguished  senator,  who  is  also 
here  tonight.  Senator  Wadsworth.  We  have  had  cabinet  mem- 
bers, senators,  representatives  and  governors  of  other  states;  dis- 
tinguished clergymen,  lawyers,  educators  and  leaders  of  industry, 
all  of  them  gathered  here  to  pay  their  tribute  to  the  memory  of 
this  great  American. 

This  club,  my  friends,  has  preserved  some  of  the  addresses  made 
at  these  dinners — in  fact,  most  of  those  made  before  1909  have 
been  published,  and  before  the  Lincoln  Dinner  next  year,  we  are 
hopeful  that  the  Lincoln  orations  of  the  recent  past  will  also  be 
in  book  form. 


CURTIS  D.  WILBUR 

Secretary  of  the  Navy  in  the  Coolidge  administra- 
tion. Native  of  Iowa.  Chief  Judge  of  the  Superior 
Court,  California.  Unitarian  minister  in  Portland, 
Ore.    Author  and  historian. 


ADDRESS   OF 

HON.  CURTIS  D.  WILBUR 


Ladies  and  Gentlemen  of  the  Republican  Club:  No  man  can 
enter  this  city  and  contemplate  its  great  buildings  without  pon- 
dering upon  the  fate  of  nations,  and  wondering  whether  sixty 
centuries  from  now  people  will  be  digging  in  the  ruins  of  a  city 
to  ascertain  something  of  the  civilization  of  that  city,  as  ancient 
Nineveh  was;  whether  there  will  be  here,  sixty  centuries  from 
now,  a  population  distinct  from  this  population,  carrying  on  its 
civilization  and  extending  it  in  new  and  untried  fields,  but  with 
ever-progressing  spirit.  If  that  should  be  the  case,  I  venture  to 
say  it  will  be  because  in  a  very  large  measure  the  spirit  of  Abra- 
ham Lincoln  will  have  permeated  those  who  followed  us,  as  his 
spirit  has  permeated  those  who  have  served  since  he  was  Presi- 
dent of  the  United  States. 

Abraham  Lincoln  once  said  in  his  whimsical  fashion:  **God 
must  have  loved  the  common  people  because  he  made  so  many 
of  them."  In  this  fashion  he  gave  to  us  evidence  of  his  faith 
in  the  everyday  man. 

We  are  here  to-night,  celebrating  ths  birth  of  Lincoln  upon 
a  piece  of  land  in  Kentucky,  given  by  the  State  of  Virginia  to 
the  United  States  of  America  as  a  pledge  to  the  new  union  of  the 
faith  of  that  State  in  the  Union  of  the  States — from  there  to  In- 
diana and  later  to  Illinois.     He  was  raised  a  pioneer  upon  land 


456  NATIONAL   REPUBLICAN   CLUB 

given  by  the  nation  to  his  father  as  a  part  of  the  great  program 
of  dividing  the  land  from  the  Atlantic  to  the  Pacific  Ocean  among 
the  common  people  who  would  take  advantage  of  the  gift  to  im- 
prove the  land  and  develop  the  country.  He  was  raised  in  con- 
tact with  the  common  people.  Abraham  Lincoln  believed  in  a 
just  God,  and  when  he  stood  in  1860  before  an  audience  in  the 
City  of  New  York  to  there  declare  his  faith  and  his  convictions 
at  Cooper  Union,  he  closed  with  those  memorable  words: 

**Let  us  have  faith  that  right  makes  might,  and  in 
that  faith  let  us  to  the  end  dare  to  do  our  duty  as  we 
understand  it." 

Abraham  Lincoln  believed  in  this  nation  as  formed  by  our 
forefathers;  and  upon  the  battlefield  of  Gettysburg,  in  the  midst 
of  that  great  Civil  War,  he  declared,  in  that  memorable  address, 
his  faith  in  a  government  conceived  and  dedicated,  as  this  was, 
to  liberty  and  to  the  equality  of  man.  He  called  upon  his  fellow- 
citizens  upon  that  battlefield  to  renew  their  consecration  to  the 
principles  which  had  given  birth  to  this  nation,  and  adjured  them 
to  come  to  the  aid  of  the  "government  of  the  people,  by  the  peo- 
ple and  for  the  people,  to  the  end  that  there  might  be  a  new 
birth  of  freedom,  and  that  that  government  should  not  perish 
from  the  earth."  He  saw  in  the  Civil  War  a  test  of  our  institu- 
tions ;  he  saw  in  that  war,  while  it  was  being  fought,  a  test  as  to 
whether  or  not  it  were  possible  to  get  men  together  in  this  type 
of  government  and  keep  them  together,  as  against  the  pressure 
of  internal  conflict,  and  that  war  determined  favorably  with  this 
nation  the  test  whether  a  republican  organization,  as  it  was, 
could  endure  against  internal  dissension.  President  Wilson  saw 
in  the  war  clouds  of  Europe  enveloping  this  nation,  as  he  saw  the 
marching  armies  of  Germany  coming  westward  and  pushing  their 


ADDRESS  OF  HON.  CURTIS  D.  WILBUR  457 

way  eastward  again,  a  test  of  this  nation  whether  a  republican 
form  of  government  could  endure  upon  the  same  globe  where  an 
autocratic  and  despotic  form  of  government,  devoted  to  militarism 
and  determined  through  the  dynastic  control  to  use  that  mili- 
taristic power  to  advance  its  own  ends  at  the  expense  of  its 
neighbor.  The  nation  stood  that  test.  There  is  to-day  facing 
us  a  test  which  does  not  perhaps  seem  to  be  critical  to  us.  It 
seems  far  away;  but  we  are  confronted  with  the  dictatorship  of 
a  minority  of  the  proletariat  in  the  great  nation.  There  has  been 
an  overturning  of  a  dictatorship,  a  czar  has  been  exchanged  for 
that,  a  minority,  and  we  are  called  by  this  group,  the  enemies 
of  government,  imperialistic.  These  words  sound  strange  in  the 
ears  of  those  who  participated  in  forming  the  government  and 
have  participated  in  that  government,  devoted  to  the  equality 
of  man.  A  homogeneous  whole  in  which  there  is  no  top  and  no 
bottom,  no  class,  no  distinction.  We  have  felt  that  this  govern- 
ment was  like  a  pyramid,  which,  homogeneous  in  all  its  parts, 
if  overturned  is  equally  high;  and  while  we  do  not  have  revolu- 
tions, we  have  the  constant  rotation  in  our  offices,  a  change  of 
leadership,  so  that  the  man  to-day  who  is  president  may  to- 
morrow be  a  college  professor,  and  the  man  who  to-day  is  a 
college  professor  may  to-morrow  be  president.  We  have  the  man 
in  the  log  cabin,  Abraham  Lincoln,  the  rail  splitter,  wielding 
the  power  of  president,  and  we  have  another  man  coming  from 
the  farm  in  Vermont.  Our  President  to-day  is  wielding  the  power 
of  that  great  office. 

There  has  been  one  result  of  the  Civil  War,  developed  during 
the  period  that  has  passed  since  the  War,  which  I  wish  to  em- 
phasize in  the  phrase  used  by  Abraham  Lincoln,  "government  by 
the  people."  There  have  been  other  governments  of  the  people, 
and  there  have  been  governments,  most  of  them  who  claim  to  be 


458  NATIONAL  EEPITBLICAN   CLUB 

for  the  people,  but  in  the  new  sense  we  have  been  feeling  in 
these  years  that  this  government  is  owned  by  the  people.  All  of 
its  powers  are  exercised  by  the  people.  If  you  look  on  the  shelves 
of  a  law  office,  you  will  find  a  great  mass  of  legislation,  not  only 
by  the  Congress  of  the  United  States,  but  also  by  the  several  State 
legislatures;  you  will  find  a  vast  mass  of  judicial  decisions,  grow- 
ing in  volume,  and  one  of  the  reasons  there  has  been  this  large 
volume  of  legislation  and  judicial  decisions  has  been  because  of 
the  growing  conviction  that,  after  all,  this  government  was 
established  to  carry  out  the  wishes  and  the  will  of  the  people, 
and  if  in  any  particular  it  does  not  do  so,  they  have  retained  the 
right  and  the  ability  to  make  the  necessary  change. 

The  immediate  result  of  the  Civil  War  was  the  amendment  of 
the  Federal  Constitution,  the  thirteenth,  fourteenth  and  fifteenth 
amendments.  Familiar  as  you  all  are  with  these  amendments  to 
the  Constitution,  I  doubt  if  anyone  who  is  not  a  member  of  the 
legal  profession  has  fully  apprehended  the  extent  of  the  signifi- 
cance of  this  great  charter  of  liberty.  Not  only  were  slaves  freed 
by  the  thirteenth  amendment,  but  by  the  fourteenth  and  fifteenth 
amendments  to  the  Federal  Constitution  with  reference  to  the 
United  States  who  not  only  had  within  his  own  State  the  rights 
of  a  citizen  of  that  State,  but  in  every  other  State  the  rights  of 
a  citizen  of  the  United  States.  These  principles  enunciated  in 
these  amendments  have  been  the  subject  of  consideration  by  the 
judges  in  all  of  our  courts,  and  volumes  have  been  written  ex- 
pounding them,  elaborating  and  developing  them. 

In  reference  to  Abraham  Lincoln,  the  great  Emancipator,  I 
believe  that  we  are  apt  to  think  of  him  as  liberating  four  million 
slaves,  who,  up  to  the  time  of  the  Emancipation  Proclamation, 
were  regarded  as  property;  but  Abraham  Lincoln  saw  the  prob- 
lem in  a  larger  aspect.     He  did  not  so  much  desire  to  liberate 


ADDRESS  OF  HON.  CURTIS  D.  WILBUR  459 

individual  slaves  as  lie  desired  to  eradicate  from  the  minds  of 
his  fellow  citizens  the  consent  to  slavery.  He  wished  to  root  out 
from  the  hearts  of  the  people  of  America  a  consent  to  slavery, 
and  acceptance  of  it  as  a  public  institution,  and  his  efforts  were 
directed  towards  that  end.  He  was  content  slavery  should  be 
excluded  from  the  territories,  so  that  when  these  new  States,  with 
their  citizens,  came  into  the  Union/  they  would  come  in  as  free 
States.  He  did  not  intend  or  desire  to  interfere  with  the  institu- 
tion in  those  States  where  it  was  firmly  established,  but  he  be- 
lieved if  men  generally  recognized  that  this  inherited  institution 
was  wrong,  that  it  would  ultimately  pass  away;  and  in  defining 
the  issue  between  the  North  and  the  South,  he  defined  it  as  the 
issue  between  those  who,  on  one  side,  believed  that  slavery  was 
right  and  desired  its  extension,  and  on  the  other  side,  those  who 
believed  it  wrong  and  desired  its  suppression. 

We  are  here  building  on  the  foundations  laid  down  by  our  fore- 
fathers, building  upon  the  principles  Abraham  Lincoln  wrought 
out.  We  are  enjoying  the  new  birth  of  freedom  of  which  he 
spoke.  We  have  done  this  in  our  civil  government,  county,  mu- 
nicipal, State  and  national. 

I  want  to  turn  your  thoughts,  while  I  speak  of  the  building 
of  a  nation,  to  two  great  monuments — memorials  in  the  city  of 
Washington,  one  of  them  to  George  Washington.  It  was  begun 
in  1848  and  suspended  in  1852,  and  v/hen  Abraham  Lincoln,  look- 
ing out  of  his  White  House  windows  towards  the  Potomac,  was 
cogitating  upon  the  subject  of  his  Gettysburg  address,  he  could 
see  this  unfinished  monument  standing  about  150  feet  above  its 
foundations,  with  the  unused  derricks  still  upon  it,  and  when  he 
reflected  upon  this  government  as  an  unfinished  and  untested  in- 
stitution, he  had  before  him  this  uncompleted  monument  to  the 
founder  of  his  country;  but  that  monument  is  now  completed. 


460  NATIONAL   REPUBLICAN   CLUB 

It  stands  a  magnificent  structure,  recommenced  in  1880  by  a  re- 
united people,  and  completed  in  1884,  but  there  still  is  at  that 
level  of  160  feet  a  very  definite  line.  And  now  the  statue  of 
Abraham  Lincoln  gazes  out  across  the  Mirror  Pool  to  the  com- 
pleted monument.  We  can  easily  imagine  the  spirit  of  Lincoln 
rejoicing  in  the  completed  monument,  and  noting  with  pride  the 
line  which  marks  the  passage  from  slavery  to  freedom.  Slave 
labor  built  the  monument,  the  blood  and  tears  of  the  slaves  min- 
gled with  the  mortar;  but  from  this  point  on  a  united  nation 
has  given  us  the  perfect  monument,  and  it  has  been  completed 
without  the  taint  of  slavery;  and  so  of  this  nation,  however 
kindly  we  may  feel  towards  those  who,  from  tradition  and 
contact,  felt  themselves  compelled  to  accept  slavery,  we  in  the 
meetings  for  the  framing  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence, 
or  in  the  meetings  for  the  framing  of  the  Constitution  of  the 
United  States,  or  in  the  councils  of  the  nation  or  State,  we  note 
that  up  to  that  point  there  was  that  consent  in  the  hearts  of  a 
great  majority  of  our  people  towards  the  institution  which  has 
been  since  withdrawn,  and  the  monument  of  this  great  State  and 
government  which  is  being  built,  is  being  built  without  that  ele- 
ment in  it;  it  is  free.  There  has  been  a  new  birth  of  freedom, 
but  to-night  we  are  here  primarily  as  Republicans,  and  it  is 
proper  to  say  something  concerning  the  work  of  the  Republican 
Party  in  connection  with  this  building.  It  is  enough  for  us  to- 
night to  remind  ourselves  that  it  was  the  Republican  Party  that 
placed  Abraham  Lincoln  in  the  White  House  and  sustained  him, 
with  every  loyal  citizen  joining  hands  during  the  Civil  War,  re- 
elected him  during  that  war,  and  upon  his  untimely  assassina- 
tion, took  up  the  work  where  he  left  it,  and  in  county  boards  of 
supervisors,  and  in  city  councils.  State  legislatures.  State  con- 
stitutional conventions,  and  in  Congress,  and  the  Presidential 


ADDRESS  OF  HON.  CURTIS  D.  WILBUR  461 

chair,  have  carried  on  during  these  years,  and  the  building  which 
has  been  erected  has  in  a  large  measure  been  erected  by  the 
efforts  of  the  Republican  Party  who  made  Lincoln  possible, 
and  who  in  turn  were  revivified  by  his  support.  This  is  not 
the  time  to  compare  the  efforts  of  this  party  we  love  with 
that  of  another  party.  It  is  enough  for  us  to-night  to  say  that 
this  party  has  never  been  lagging  behind  in  progress,  looking 
towards  human  betterment,  towards  the  development  of  the  free- 
dom of  the  ballot,  towards  the  participation  of  every  citizen  in 
the  councils  of  the  nation.  It  was  given  birth — this  party — in 
the  principles  of  freedom,  and  it  has  incorporated  that  principle 
in  every  act,  and  insofar  as  there  has  been  a  failure  to  liberate 
and  extend  liberty  in  the  hearts  of  its  members  and  in  the  gov- 
ernment when  in  control,  it  has  been  faithful  to  that  which 
brought  it  forth.  Lincoln  has  done  much  for  the  United  States 
of  America.  Can  we  say  to-night  that  he  has  also  done  much  for 
the  people  of  the  world?  Our  hearts  were  touched  in  the  early 
years  of  the  World  War,  but  indications  here  and  there  that  the 
great  men  of  the  nations  who  felt  themselves  almost  overwhelmed 
by  the  awful  carnage  which  had  been  forced  upon  them,  were 
drinking  in  of  the  spirit  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  his  courage  in  ad- 
versity, his  patience,  his  persistence,  his  resourcefulness,  in  en- 
couraging the  allied  leaders  to  gather  their  forces  together,  with 
the  conviction  that  they  would  win;  but  it  was  not  only  in  the 
spirit  of  Abraham  Lincoln  that  victory  was  finally  achieved.  It 
was  the  United  States  of  America  and  its  prosperity,  due  to  the 
united  putting  of  the  soldiers  from  the  North  and  from  the 
South,  shoulder  to  shoulder,  on  the  battle  fields  of  France,  that 
finally  brought  the  victory.  We  need  not  to-night  compare 
the  effort  of  this  nation  with  any  other.  We  know  that  with- 
out   the   effort   of  this   nation,   the   result,    humanly   speaking, 


462  NATIONAL  REPUBLICAN  CLUB 

at  any  rate,  would  have  been  different.  So  I  would  like  to  think 
to-night  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  picked  at  by  politicians,  sneered 
at,  looked  down  upon,  yet  patiently  and  persistently  working  out, 
as  he  thought,  the  destiny  of  a  free  people  upon  this  Continent, 
but  under  God  working  out  the  destiny  of  civilization. 

I  ask  you  if  without  the  union  of  the  States,  without  the  pros- 
perity of  the  States,  without  the  spirit  of  liberty,  we  would  have 
been  successful  in  the  World  War?  I  was  thrilled  not  so  long 
ago,  when  I  picked  up  a  book  by  General  Maurice,  the  English 
General,  who  wrote  on  the  last  four  months  of  the  war,  and  what 
a  thrilling  book  it  was,  that  sudden  change  from  a  defensive  in 
which  heart-broken  men  strove  to  hold  the  line,  to  that  of  of- 
fensive, which  went  on  day  after  day,  until  victory  was  achieved. 
The  marching  of  thousands,  tens  of  thousands  and  millions  of 
men,  yes,  the  actual  slaughter  of  millions  of  men  in  this  four 
months,  and  at  the  conclusion  of  his  book,  after  this  picture  of 
this  awful  war,  with  its  blood  and  its  toil,  he  summed  up  in  a 
word  the  contributions  of  the  various  nations  who  had  engaged 
in  it,  but  closed  with  this  thought,  and  it  harked  back  to  the 
words  of  Abraham  Lincoln  in  New  York  City  at  Cooper  Union 
in  1860,  for  he  said: 

'*If  this  victory  is  to  be  ascribed  to  any  one  cause 
rather  than  any  other  cause,  it  must  be  ascribed  to  the 
faith  of  the  allied  people  in  the  principle  that  'right 
makes  might.*  " 

So  we  have  the  testimony  of  this  soldier,  with  all  his  technical 
knowledge,  that  after  all  it  was  this  man's  faith  which  per- 
meated the  free  people  of  the  earth  and  gave  them  the  victory. 


FRANK  B.  WILLIS 

Born  at  Lewis  Center,  Delaware  County,  Ohio,  De- 
cember 28,  1871;  educated  in  the  common  schools  and 
at  Ohio  Northern  University,  Ada,  Ohio,  where  he 
afterwards  was  for  several  years  a  teacher;  admitted 
to  Ohio  Bar  in  1906;  served  in  74th  and  75th  General 
Assemblies  of  Ohio;  elected  to  House  of  Representa- 
tives in  the  62nd  and  63rd  Congresses,  resigning  his 
seat  January,  1915,  to  become  Governor  of  Ohio,  suc- 
ceeding the  Hon.  James  M.  Cox;  elected  to  "United 
States  Senate,  November  2,  1920;  became  member  of 
Senate  January  13,  1921,  by  appointment  of  the  Gov- 
ernor of  Ohio,  to  succeed  the  Hon.  Warren  G.  Hard- 
ing, resigned. 


ADDRESS   OF 

HON.  FRANK  B.  WILLIS 


Ladies  and  gentlemen,  it  would  be  exceedingly  difficult  to  say 
anything  new  about  Lincoln,  or  to  say  very  much  that  would  be 
new  to  you  concerning  the  policies  and  the  history  of  the  Repub- 
lican Party,  and  yet  it  is  fitting,  I  think  seroiusly,  at  least  once 
a  year,  that  we  all  of  us  should  give  some  thought  to  his  great 
leader,  this  greatest  of  Americans,  this  greatest  of  Republicans. 
Within  a  year  I  was  at  Springfield,  111.,  and  I  stood  at  the  spot 
where,  in  1858,  Abraham  Lincoln  had  stood,  and,  I  think,  with  a 
gentleman  who  was  his  friend  and  who  was  present  at  that  meet- 
ing— this  man,  Mr.  John  Bunn — told  me  that  he  had  known  Lin- 
coln for  many  years.  He  had  heard  him  speak  upon  many  occa- 
sions, but  he  said  as  Abraham  Lincoln  arose  to  speak  on  that 
occasion,  there  was  a  light  in  his  eyes  that  he  had  never  seen 
there  before;  there  was  a  strength  in  the  figure  that  had  never 
appeared  before.  He  walked  out  to  the  edge  of  the  platform 
and  looked  out  over  the  sea  of  faces,  and  stood  there  for  a  min- 
ute or  two,  until  as  his  auditor  told  me,  the  silence  became  al- 
most oppressive,  and  then  here  is  what  he  said,  as  he  began  to 
speak — remember  this  was  1858— he  said:  "We  are  far  into  the 
fifth  year  since  the  initiation  of  a  policy  with  the  avowed  object 
and  confident  promise  of  putting  an  end  to  slavery  agitation. 
Under  the  operation  of  that  policy,  not  only  has  the  agitation 


466  NATIONAL  EEFUBLICAN   CLUB 

not  ceased,  but  it  has  continually  augmented.  In  my  opinion  it 
will  not  cease  until  a  crisis  shall  have  been  reached  and  passed. 
A  house  divided  against  itself  cannot  stand.  The  Union  cannot 
permanently  endure  half  slave  and  half  free.  I  do  not  expect 
the  house  will  fall;  I  do  not  expect  the  Union  will  be  dissolved, 
but  I  do  expect  it  will  cease  to  be  divided." 

That  was  said  in  1858.  Bold,  courageous,  prophetic  words  they 
were,  that  indicated  that  this  man  had  vision  and  courage.  The 
war  was  some  distance  off.  Few  men  would  have  admitted  that 
there  was  to  be  a  war;  and  yet,  peering  through  the  mist  and 
clouds  of  debate,  this  man  saw  what  was  coming,  and  he  saw  it 
well  and  in  his  heart  he  harbored  no  hate.  You  recall  what  he 
said  years  ago  as  he  stood  at  the  front  of  the  Capitol,  delivering 
his  first  inaugural  address,  just  the  last  words  of  it.  He  said, 
"I  am  loath  to  close" — ^he  was  not  speaking  simply  to  the  great 
crowd  that  had  assembled  in  the  plaza,  but  speaking  over  their 
heads  to  the  southland  whence  he  came  and  which  he  loved.  He 
said:  "We  are  not  enemies,  but  friends.  We  must  not  be 
enemies.  Though  patience  may  have  strained,  it  must  not  break, 
our  bonds  of  affection.  The  mystic  cords  of  memory,  stretching 
from  every  battle  field  and  patriot  grave  to  every  living  heart 
and  hearthstone  all  over  this  broad  land,  will  yet  again  swell 
the  hearts  of  the  Union,  when  touched,  as  surely  they  will  be,  by 
the  better  angels  of  our  nature."  And  when,  on  the  occasion  that 
was  referred  to  and  eloquently  described  by  the  Secretary,  when 
our  boys  went  beyond  the  sea  to  keep  the  old  flag  in  the  air,  and 
not  simply  to  fight  for  a  theory  but  to  protect  American  rights 
which  had  been  ruthlessly  assailed,  when  they  went  away,  the 
boys  from  Alabama  and  the  boys  from  Maine,  the  boys  from  New 
York  and  the  boys  from  Mississippi,  marching  shoulder  to 
shoulder,    their    going   was    a   realization    of   the    prophecy    of 


ADDRESS  OF  HON.  FEANK  B.  WILLIS  467 

Abraham  Lincoln,  "We  are  not  enemies,  but  friends."  So  he 
had  patience,  he  had  courage;  he  was  big  enough  to  understand 
and  not  to  hate,  and  then  even  when  victory  was  all  but  in  sight, 
do  you  remember  what  he  said  in  his  second  inaugural  address? 
He  had  been  talking  about  the  ravages  of  war,  and  had  been 
saying  that  peace  did  not  at  that  time  seem  so  distant  as  it  had 
at  one  time.  He  said,  again  thinking  of  the  South  and  speaking 
to  the  South  as  well  as  to  the  North — he  said: 

"Both  read  the  same  Bible  and  pray  to  the  same  God  and  each 
invokes  His  aid  against  the  other.  It  may  seem  strange  that  any 
man  should  dare  to  ask  a  just  God's  assistance  in  wringing  their 
bread  from  the  sweat  of  other  men's  faces,  but  let  us  judge  not 
that  we  be  not  judged.  The  Almighty  has  His  own  purposes. 
Woe  unto  the  world  because  of  offenses,  for  it  must  needs  be  that 
offenses  come,  but  woe  to  that  man  by  whom  the  offense  cometh. 
If  we  shall  suppose  that  American  slavery  is  one  of  those  offenses 
which  in  the  providence  of  God  must  needs  come,  but  which,  hav- 
ing continued  through  His  appointed  time,  He  now  wills  to  re- 
move, and  that  He  gives  to  both  North  and  South  this  terrible 
war  as  the  woe  due  to  those  by  whom  the  offense  came,  shall  we 
discern  therein  any  departure  from  those  divine  attributes  which 
the  believers  in  the  living  God  always  ascribe  to  Him?  Fondly 
do  we  hope,  fervently  do  we  pray  that  this  mighty  scourge  of 
war  may  speedily  pass  away,  yet  if  God  wills  that  it  continue 
until  all  the  wealth  piled  by  the  bondsmen's  250  years  of  unre- 
quited toil  shall  be  sunk,  and  until  every  drop  of  blood  drawn 
with  the  lash  shall  be  paid  by  another  drawn  with  the  sword, 
as  was  said  3,000  years  ago,  so  still  it  must  be  said  *The  judg- 
ments of  the  Lord  are  true  and  righteous  altogether.' " 

He  had  courage,  and  one  other  thing,  and  then  I  will  leave 
this  branch  of  the  topic,  because  seriously  I  want  to  talk  some 


468  NATIONAL   REPUBLICAN   CLUB 

of  politics  before  I  get  through  here,  if  my  time  does  not  run 
out  and  you  don't;  yet  I  like  to  think  about  this  great — first 
great  Republican.  My  secretary,  Mr.  Charles  A.  Jones,  who  as 
my  friend  Senator  Wadsworth  knows  very  well,  spent  a  year  in 
China  within  the  last  five  years,  has  told  me  something  that  to 
me  is  an  eloquent  tribute  to  Abraham  Lincoln.  This  boy  went 
up  the  Yangtse  River  as  far  as  he  could  by  steamboat,  and  then 
went  over  hundreds  of  miles  up  the  river  on  rafts,  in  canoes,  and 
then  organized  a  caravan  and  went  away  into  the  interior  of 
China,  2,000  miles  almost  from  the  sea,  up  yonder  amongst  the 
mountain  peaks  that  are  clad  in  the  everlasting  snow,  way  up 
almost  to  the  plateau  of  Thibet,  and  yet  there  in  those  land-locked 
valleys  where  the  foot  of  white  men  had  not  before  trod,  there 
upon  the  mud  walls  of  the  pitiful  little  huts  in  which  the  poor 
people  lived,  there  he  found  upon  those  walls  rude  woodcuts  of 
Abraham  Lincoln.  How  did  they  know  about  him?  How  did 
they  find  out  about  him?  We  do  not  know,  but  in  that  inscrut- 
able way  that  the  human  race  has  somehow,  they  understood  that 
this  man  was  their  friend.  He  belonged  not  simply  to  Illinois, 
nor  to  this  country,  but  to  the  world.  A  great  American  poet 
said,  "Four  things  a  man  must  learn  to  do  if  he  would  keep  his 
record  true,  to  think  without  confusion  clearly,  to  love  his  fel- 
low men  sensibly,  to  act  from  honest  motives  freely,  to  trust  in 
God  and  heaven  securely."  Somehow  these  poor  people  under- 
stood that  here  was  a  man  that  loved  his  fellow  men  sensibly. 


ADDRESS    OF 

REV.  S.  PARKES  C  ADM  AN 


Mr.  President,  fellow  guests,  ladies  and  gentlemen:  I  have 
listened  with  the  greatest  possible  interest  to  these  excellent 
speeches  which  have  preceded  the  few  remarks  I  am  about  to 
make.  I  admire  the  dispassionate  and  judicial  tone  of  the  Sec- 
retary's address,  and  also  the  enthusiastic  and  exhilarating  qual- 
ities of  this  inimitable  speech  delivered  by  our  good  friend,  the 
Senator  from  Ohio.  I  strongly  suspect  that  he  is  of  the  Methodist 
persuasion. 

Senator  Willis:   You  bet.    I  don't  work  at  it. 

Rev.  S.  Parkes  Cadman:  Be  it  far  from  me.  Be  it  far  from 
me  to  introduce  any  frigidity  which  might  perhaps  hint  of  a 
glacial  period  of  reflection  following  on  this  warm  movement 
which  has  been  established  among  us.  In  one  respect,  however, 
we  are  a  unit,  and  I  am  only  playing  a  sort  of  second  host  to  my 
dear  friend.  Senator  Calder,  in  saying  what  I  have  to  say.  We 
are  a  unit,  not  only  in  our  own  nation,  almost  without  exception, 
but  in  the  world  at  large,  in  our  tribute  to  this  glorious  man 
whose  very  name  kindles  emotion  in  the  heart  and  music  in  the 
memory.  There  are  only  a  few  such  names,  by  no  means  as  many 
as  we  sometimes  allocate  in  words  and  in  analytic  appealing  to 
ourselves,  only  a  very  few.  Most  of  the  writers  speak  their  fill 
and  disappear,  and  the  men  at  arms  have  but  a  temporary  fame, 


470  NATIONAL   REPXTBIICAN   CLUB 

but  out  of  the  skies  of  each  succeeding  period  here  and  there, 
very  rarely,  a  star  arises  into  the  ascendancy  and  retains  it. 
Among  these,  only  two  are  absolutely  sure  of  what  we  sometimes 
lightly  speak  of  in  a  rhetorical  humor,  immortality.  If  I  were 
inclined  to  say  it  about  any  two  Americans,  I  should  certainly 
say  they  were  George  Washington  and  Abraham  Lincoln. 
We  are  not  alone  in  that  verdict.  We  have  succeeded  in  the 
rise  of  intellectualism,  backed  by  morality,  in  passing  these 
boundaries  which  so  often  restrain,  as  the  Senator's  speech  showed 
you,  what  otherwise  might  be  wise  political  action.  We  have 
passed  the  boundary  under  the  leadership  of  great  spirits  who, 
to  quote  a  Glasgow  author,  "have  the  world  for  their  tool,"  and 
among  these  supremely  is  this  enigma,  this  constant  source  of 
mystery  and  marvel,  this  unexplained  and  perhaps  inexplicable 
problem  of  humanity,  the  difficulty  arising  out  of  his  very  vast- 
ness,  and  the  blending  of  so  many  opposite  characteristics  in  his 
full  orbed  nature,  in  whose  honor  we  have  met  to-night.  Only 
the  other  day  I  heard  of  a  single  collector  who  had  1,600  items 
of  Lincolniana,  and  he  is  only  as  you  see  one  among  many,  and 
as  for  the  volumes  which  have  been  written  about  Mr.  Lincoln, 
they  are  translated  into  fourteen  of  the  languages  of  first  rate 
nations,  and  some  of  which  would  be  considered  second  rate,  and 
since  I  last  had  the  privilege  of  addressing  this  club,  I  believe 
Lord  Charnwood  has  written  his  excellent  biography  of  Mr.  Lin- 
coln, and  so  has  Carl  Sandburg,  treating  him  with  especial  em- 
phasis upon  the  first  fifty-two  years  of  his  life;  the  four  years 
of  vortex  in  which  he  later  moved,  and  the  further  life  of  Lin- 
coln by  my  friend.  Dr.  William  E.  Barton,  is  simply  filled  with  a 
wealth  of  detail,  not  unimportant  in  some  respects,  vital  for  the 
clearing  up  of  prejudice  and  misinformation  concerning  this 
man,  and  if  I  were  asked  to  quote  to  those  who  severely  criticize 


ADDRESS  OF  REV.  S.  PARKES  CADMAN,  D.D.  471 

democracy  to-day,  an  apologium  for  our  own  form  of  government, 
to  which  we  stand  pledged  forever,  because  it  has  in  it  that  lib- 
erty under  law  which  is  an  essential  part  of  the  good  of  every- 
thing, I  should  certainly  revert,  as  I  have  often  done,  and  will 
doubtless  continue  to  do,  to  Abraham  Lincoln.  The  very  name  stirs 
emotions  too  deep  for  praise,  and  when  we  think  of  the  glory, 
and  the  terror,  the  triumph  and  the  tragedy  of  his  marvelous 
career,  where  is  there  a  theme  for  the  use  and  treatment  of 
dramatic  imagination  in  the  whole  realm  of  history,  outside  of  the 
Bible,  and  not  altogether  outside  of  it  either,  which  better  lends 
itself  for  such  treatment  than  the  career  of  this  marvelous  man. 
Sometimes  to-day  we  meet  with  blase  persons,  satiated  with  past 
experience.  As  Byron  said  earlier,  even  at  a  later  date,  there's 
nothing  left  in  life  but  the  canker  and  the  dream.  Behind  this 
hectic  improvement — a  mechanical  age  which  sometimes  scares  the 
life  blood  out  of  human  existence — ^there  is  this  deep  satiety  which 
as  you,  who  studied  history,  know  fell  upon  the  ancient  Eoman 
world.  It  established  the  modern  inquisition,  and  some  of  these 
followers  of  that  inquisition  resemble  hyenas,  lunatics,  make  gar- 
bage appeals  for  anything  they  can  find  which  paints  a  hero  in 
an  earthbound  attitude  or  a  humiliating  position.  Well,  they 
have  scanned  him  of  whom  we  speak  to-night  with  meticulous 
scrutiny,  as  you  know,  and  they  have  told  us  of  his  emotional 
uprushes,  his  inability  to  choose  men  who  were  either  loyal  to 
him  or  co-operative,  and  also  of  his  love  affairs,  not  that  there 
was  anything  in  them  savoring  of  unworth  or  the  slightest  taint 
of  dishonor,  but  nevertheless  marked  by  some  vacillation  of  his, 
possibly  laziness,  the  melancholy  which  ran  through  his  hot  veins, 
all  this  has  been  rehashed  and  may  be  stated  here  again  to  show 
that  on  this  historic  occasion  and  in  this  great  club  we  are  not 
sacrificing  history  to  eulogy.     But  when  they  have  been  stated, 


472  NATIONAL   REPUBLICAN   CLTJB 

when  the  last  thing  has  been  said  by  those  who  advocate  the 
necessary  humiliation  of  our  common  nature,  the  net  result  is 
indeed,  so  far  as  I  can  judge,  negligible,  absolutely  negligible. 
I  appeal  to  the  men  here  and  to  the  women  who  know  us  bet- 
ter than  we  know  ourselves,  where  is  there  a  man,  taking  him 
all  in  all,  whether  in  our  own  circle  here  immediately  or  in  the 
circles  of  the  near  past  to  which  Mr.  Lincoln  belongs,  into 
whose  book  of  life  we  can  look  and  look  again  and  find  so  little 
to  blame,  so  much  to  praise,  so  much  to  love,  so  much  to  revere? 
And  if  the  youth  of  this  nation  is  to  maintain  the  self -reverence 
and  self-knowledge  and  self-control  which  alone  can  lead  our 
people  to  sovereign  power,  and  not  even  these  merely  diplomatic 
and  statesman-like  measures — if  the  future  is  to  be  assured  beyond 
the  rate  of  infirmity  or  even  discrepant  policy,  it  will  have  to 
revert  to  the  wisdom  of  this  great  father;  to  the  obedience  of  his 
justice  and  to  the  knowledge  of  his  spiritual  discipline.  There  is 
no  other  way  out.  Our  system  of  government  does  not  account 
for  our  supremacy,  notwithstanding  that  some  excited  leaders 
would  make  you  believe  it  is.  Personal  character  behind  gov- 
ernment is  the  great  motivating  force  of  permanence  and  suc- 
cess in  the  sons  of  men  and  nations.  Lincoln  seems  to  me  always 
a  great  example,  if  you  will  allow  me  to  say  so — he  is  a  great 
example  to  this  literature  of  ours,  to  all  men  who  bear  the 
heat  and  burden  of  the  day.  In  the  first  place,  we  are  not 
to  forget  he  belonged  to  an  old  stock.  Perhaps  nothing  is  more 
misleading  from  the  strictly  scientific  viewpoint  than  claims  of 
long  descent.  Sometimes  when  I  hear  those  who  make  that  claim, 
I  cannot  help  but  feeling  that  assent  would  be  a  relief  for  every- 
body concerned,  and  if  there  is  anything  which  has  caused  more 
suspicion,  and  properly  so,  as  to  its  truth,  by  its  exaggerations,  it 
is  the  utterance  of  those  who  are  convinced  that  by  the  accident 


ADDRESS  OF  REV.  S.  PARKES  CADMAN,  D.D.  473 

of  birth  they  received  some  mysterious  power  which  does  not 
belong  to  their  fellow  men.  In  this  respect  Mr.  Lindein  was  an 
aristocrat,  and  the  mere  incident  of  the  temporary  sojourn  of  his 
father  in  something  savoring  of  a  pioneer  does  not  for  a  mo- 
ment impugn  the  main  issue.  He  could  no  more  have  grown  in 
other  centers  of  the  world  than  where  he  and  his  father  grew 
than  you  could  produce  lilies  on  an  iceberg.  He  belonged  to  the 
great  breed  of  magistrates  who,  for  a  thousand  years,  have  al- 
lowed their  genius  to  flow  in  the  direction  of  government,  con- 
stitutionalism, the  debating  of  gi-eat  public  issues  and  the  carrying 
on  of  the  mighty  traditions  of  Eome  as  a  first  class  political  and 
social  organization.  England  has  been  premier  in  that  respect. 
Whatever  we  may  have  to  say  about  her  or  against  her,  she  is 
still  the  mother  and  mistress  of  other  peoples,  born  to  a  certain 
sort  of  brave  and  solemn  freedom,  which  lives  to-day,  so  that  it 
may  exist  to-morrow.  Out  of  that  blood  he  grew,  as  we  know, 
and  the  difference  between  his  growing  and  that  of  Washington 
was  practically  infinitesimal.  Both  belonged  to  one  great  breed, 
and  by  finding  here,  as  they  did,  though  under  totally  different 
conditions,  ample  room  for  the  development  of  their  particular 
genius,  they  added  to  the  luster  of  this  government  by  taking 
advantage  of  their  opportunities  and  widening  the  bounds  of  free- 
dom. That  is  the  business  of  government.  That  is  why  we  are 
here.  That  is  an  advantage  which  may  well  prove  a  victory.  We 
have  to  stand  for  those  principles  in  government  which  awaken 
public  policy  which  neither  listlessness  nor  mad  endeavor  can  ever 
utterly  abolish  or  destroy.  It  was  Mr.  Lincoln's  inborn  fortitude, 
intellectual  and  moral  integrity,  which  enabled  him  to  become 
perhaps  the  best  trained  man  who  ever  entered  the  White  House. 
Lack  of  opportunity  shows  itself  in  ignorance  of  the  real  meanings 
of  life,  and  especially  in  the  ability,  as  you  know,  do  develop  the 


474  NATIONAL   REPUBLICAN   CLUB 

soul  of  a  man  and  enable  him  to  light  his  lamp  and  gird  his  loin 
and  induce  others  to  follow.  In  this  respect  how  educated  he  was, 
how  far  his  career  contributed  to  its  great  climax  at  the  last! 
Think  for  a  moment  of  his  physique,  his  honesty  and  Homeric 
face,  for  if  you  look  upon  this  picture  above  me,  you  will  see  how 
completely  it  resembles  the  picture  of  Homer,  with  a  certain 
massive  significance,  and  behind  the  eyes  sadness.  What  a  face! 
Where  else  can  you  find  anything  like  this,  so  utterly  incarnate 
of  true  divinity,  so  far  removed  from  the  bad  ways  of  men  which 
register  themselves  in  the  human  countenance?  Such  was  Lin- 
coln as  you  and  I  know  him  from  these  replicas  and  paintings 
and  statues  which  bring  him  down  to  us,  who  are  not  privileged 
1;o  see  him,  as  a  few  remaining  survivors  have  been,  face  to  face, 
^nly  last  summer,  or  the  summer  before,  on  my  way  to  one  of 
those  international  conferences  of  a  few  religionists  who  have 
finally  come  to  the  conclusion  that  it  is  more  important  to  be- 
come a  Christian  than  a  Baptist,  I  happened  to  stand  under  the 
statue  of  Lincoln  in  England.  I  was  3,000  miles  from  home.  I 
never  saw  Lincoln  as  I  saw  him  on  that  particular  day.  The  fact 
is,  I  could  not  see  him  at  the  time,  I  am  not  ashamed  to  own  it. 
Lincoln,  our  Lincoln,  the  Lincoln  of  the  world,  humanity's  man, 
as  no  other  statesmen  has  been  in  the  last  150  years,  excepting 
no  man!  Now,  ladies  and  gentlemen,  there  you  have  the  tribute 
to  his  moral  majesty  as  well  as  to  his  intellectual  equipment, 
and  in  that  equipment,  as  you  know  better  than  I  do,  he  had,  in 
the  first  place,  a  gift  very  highly  cultivated  of  intellectual  analy- 
sis. He  could  take  a  situation  and  resolve  it  into  its  elements. 
Behind  that  was  comprehensiveness,  the  thing  that  most  men 
lack  to-day,  because  the  aftermath  of  war  is  prejudice  and  bit- 
terness, expressed  in  manifold  ways.  Do  you  suppose  if  Lincoln 
were  living  now  he  would  have  any  patience  with  your  100  per 


ADDRESS  OF  REV.  S.  PARKES  CADMAN,  D.D.  475 

cent  Americans  who  hate  the  Jew  and  damn  the  Protestant,  or 
condemns  out  of  hand  his  brother  Catholic?  Do  you  suppose 
any  part  of  this  rigid  and  disfiguring  racial  prejudice  and  passion 
which  to-day  in  many  centers  usurp  parties,  and  tore  the  last 
Democratic  political  convention  of  the  nation  to  fragments,  could 
have  any  lodgment  in  the  breast  of  Abraham  Lincoln?  Ten 
thousand  times  never;  everybody  knows  that  who  knows  any- 
thing. It  is  sometimes  slightly  appalling  that  men  in  their 
enthusiasm  for  the  part,  should  lay  violent  hands  upon  the 
whole  and  destroy  that  which  he  planted  with  the  sweat  of  his 
brow  and  watered  with  his  blood.  Therefore,  if  Lincoln  promised 
us  anything  new  for  this  age,  he  promised  it  only  if  we  return 
to  the  spirit  of  magnanimity  without  which  our  intellectual 
gifts  are  apt  to  corrupt  and  foster  suspicion  and  make  a  cynic  of 
him  who  beneath  his  supposed  wisdom  is  a  fool  of  the  first  class. 
You  also  know  he  was  not  only  devoted  to  the  nation,  he 
was  also  devoted  to  the  interests  of  humanity  at  large.  The 
Senator  made  that  point,  the  Secretary  made  it,  and  elucidated  it, 
both  of  them  with  remarkable  skill,  and  within  the  bounds  of  its 
true  meaning.  When  the  London  Spectator,  which  is  perhaps 
the  leading  journal  of  Great  Britain  and  her  daughter  nations, 
was  passing  through  the  great  war,  it  quoted  Mr.  Lincoln's 
speeches  at  the  head  of  its  main  columns  every  week. 
When  fifty  thousand  men  of  Britain  and  her  sister  or  daugh- 
ter nations  had  fallen  in  one  single  week  on  the  Marne, 
Lincoln's  speech  at  Gettysburg  was  quoted  at  the  top  of  this 
column;  whereupon  the  authorities  of  Oxford  University  took  it 
and  placed  it  in  bronze  upon  the  walls  of  that  ancient  seat  of 
learning,  because  it  was  the  greatest  example  of  elevated  political 
thinking,  expressed  in  the  finest  and  most  suitable  language 
known  to  these  Englishmen.     Now,  they  have  statesmen  of  their 


476  NATIONAL   REPUBLICAN   CLUB 

own,  and  I  do  not  have  to  bother  as  a  rule — they  have  John 
Bright,  some  of  whose  words  are  the  greatest  I  have  ever  read, 
uttered  in  defense  of  and  support  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  policies.  They 
had  Gladstone,  and,  thank  God,  his  memory  is  still  untar- 
nished by  these  hyenas.  They  have  Peter  Younger,  who  died  a 
broken  man  while  in  the  service  of  his  country,  saying  with  his 
last  breath,  after  Napoleon's  victory  at  Austerlitz,  "roll  up  the 
map  of  Europe,  we  shall  not  need  it  again  for  half  a  century." 
They  had  Pitt  the  Elder,  who  stood  up  in  the  House  of  Lords  and 
said,  "I  rejoice  to  hear  America  has  rebelled."  All  these  men 
they  had,  and  yet  they  came  back  to  our  martyr's  grave,  the  out- 
come of  a  great  personality  wedded  to  a  new  type  of  constitu- 
tional democracy,  and  found  in  Lincoln's  words  their  inspiration 
and  guidance  while  passing  through  a  hell  of  suffering  and  loss. 
Therefore,  he  is  not  only  the  property  of  this  land,  he  is  the 
property  of  all  lands,  and  we  shall  measure  our  ability  to  judge 
freedom  and  right  and  to  determine  its  values  and  to  distinguish 
it  from  the  license  for  which  so  many — as  the  Senator  has  shown, 
especially  in  the  opposite  party,  in  an  unlicensed  mood,  which 
means  something  very  different  to  liberty  when  they  apply  it. 
The  ability  to  know  and  distinguish  shall  be  measured,  it  seems 
to  me,  by  the  esteem,  the  reverence  and  love  we  pay  to  the 
memory  and  the  service  of  the  matchless  and  incomparable  Abra- 
ham Lincoln.  "What  is  more,  so  far  as  the  future  of  this  nation 
is  concerned — I  am  simply  an  occupant  of  the  cloister — I  have 
to  maintain  my  sacred  solitude  and  watch  the  great  men  manipu- 
lating the  affairs  of  the  nation  who  one  by  one  may  come  and  go. 
There  is  a  certain  worry  encompassing  them  as  well  as  joy. 
Little  did  I  think  when  Mr.  Harding  went  to  the  White  House 
he  would  find  that  the  path  of  glory  led  but  to  the  grave.  You 
men  here  may  feel  the  throb  of  honorable  ambition  is  in  you  too. 


ADDRESS  OF  REV.  S.  PARKES  CADMAN,  D.D.  477 

Do  not  forget  what  the  great  Bishop  said  as  he  stood  over  the 
coffin  of  the  dead  king  of  France.  He  said,  ''How  vain  is  man 
and  how  vain  are  all  his  desires."  That  comes  to  us  as  we  look 
upon  the  past.  Let  me  say  that  so  far  as  the  future  is  concerned, 
I  make  no  predictions.  One  thing  I  feel  sure  of,  and  that  is  that 
there  are  crusades  to  be  undertaken,  if  ours  is  to  be  a  progressive 
system  of  government,  in  behalf  of  the  justifiable  expansion  of 
its  powers  and  benefits,  for  the  future,  as  have  been  so  success- 
fully and  sensibly  undertaken,  as  the  Secretary  showed  in  his 
speech,  in  the  past.  We  are  not  suffering  from  the  delusion,  I  hope, 
that  we  have  arrived,  that  there  is  nothing  left  for  us  to  seek.  So 
long  as  war  lasts,  gluing  together  the  pages  of  history  with  use- 
lessly spilt  blood,  the  rising  tide  of  conscience  in  enlightened 
nations  will  continue  to  question  the  possibility  of  its  extermina- 
tion. Very  much  of  the  trouble  we  are  experiencing  with  the 
so-called  inferior  races,  which,  by  the  way,  is  a  term  I  rather 
despise,  is  due  to  the  fact  that  they  have  been  taught  to  look 
upon  the  white  man,  if  not  with  terror,  with  a  certain  kind  of 
contempt  for  the  way  in  which  he  preaches,  pays  for  and  organ- 
izes wholesale  murder.  I  am  not  a  pacifist.  I  do  not  believe  in 
unilateral  disarmament.  I  believe,  as  the  Senator  has  well  said, 
in  being  prepared  with  police  powers  and  any  other  necessary 
expansion  to  support  just  and  lawful  ethics  and  protect  life  and 
civilization.  All  this  I  believe,  but  I  ask  you  if  the  boundaries 
are  so  fixed  to-day  that  there  is  an  eternal  decree,  keeping  nations 
from  this  legitimate  intercourse,  which  shall  make  the  white  race 
more  sure  of  its  future  than  it  is  now,  or  shall  the  ancient  past 
come  back  to  us  with  its  blood  stain  and  records  of  ruin;  Greece 
herself  torn  asunder  and  destroyed  by  her  dissensions,  and  even 
mighty  Rome  was  robbed  of  her  young  men  by  constant  wars  un- 
til she  crumbled  and  gasped.     Shall  that  be  our  lot?     I  do  not 


478  NATIONAL  REPUBLICAN  CLTTB 

think  so.  I  believe  the  spirit  of  Mr.  Lincoln  will  maintain  force 
where  force  is  necessary,  and  where  war,  Mr.  President,  redeems 
a  state  of  things  worse  than  itself,  for  the  days  to  come,  and  for 
an  indefinite  period  to  which  I  assign  no  limits;  but  I  also  be- 
lieve, because  I  am  a  Christian  man  and  ambassador  of  the  liv- 
ing God,  for  justice  and  righteousness,  that  no  such  fruit  as 
Lincoln  was  could  ever  have  been  grown  on  our  tree  as  a  nation, 
had  not  that  tree  been  meant  to  produce  the  fruit  in  the  days  to 
come  which  justifies  its  cost.  He  was  not  born  to  waste  away 
beneath  the  corroding  touch  of  time.  He  did  not  die  on  that 
awful  Friday  night  that  the  things  for  which  he  had  ventured 
everything  should  be  lost  in  some  future  gigantic  bloody  scufile 
in  which  all  the  scientific  forces  of  men  continued  to  stab  wisdom 
to  the  heart.  He  died  like  his  great  Lord  before  him,  to  make 
us  good  and  capable  in  handling  matters  right  for  our  children. 
That  great  inheritance  he  has  bequeathed  to  us.     I  thank  you. 


